


Blinded by the silence of a thousand broken hearts

by the_scent_of_your_memory



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Bottom Louis, Break Up, Cheating, Friendship, I'm sorry I don't want to tag anything right now because it would be a spoiler, M/M, Nick is kind of a dick, Smut, Swearing, Top Zayn, i know i'm sorry okay?, together with the various relationship that will come, with each chapter I'll add them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-26 21:33:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_scent_of_your_memory/pseuds/the_scent_of_your_memory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> You will look for him again, useless to deny it. And in the midst of people you will have the anxiety to meet him, like the first time you saw him.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>And the last time you lost him.</em></p><p> </p><p>(or, Louis and Harry break up. Oh well, kind of. And yeah, things happen)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay this is just the prologue. It will be full of angst so I apologize beforehand, and it will contain topics which might be triggering. As always I gotta say I'm Italian (I do have a degree in English, so yeah) so pardon for any kind of mistake. I've got the whole fic already written, I'll simply post the other actual chapters when I feel like doing it HA.
> 
> Since this is not an AU, I feel like I have to say that technically talking, how this story actually proceeds it's not how I personally believe the inner dynamics of Louis and Harry's relationship currently are. If you care about knowing it, just ask me on my [tumblr](http://poopydoopylou.tumblr.com/). I tend to be pretty dumb so bear with me.
> 
> I do trust your intelligence, but as a precaution, if you have any doubt about what are you gonna read, open a vocabulary, check the word "fiction" and yeah.
> 
> I love you [Ducky](http://http://duckyhoward.tumblr.com//). For putting up with me, and dealing with my bloody issues. 
> 
> Ha, I swear a lot and I'm quite HC, so if you don't like it, BYE!

 

 

Life sucks

  
Like, if you ask Louis, in particular in one of those days when Niall finishes all Louis’ crisps and leaves crumbs all over that stupid red carpet in the living room, that since Christmas 2011 smells of strawberry Vodka and Liam’s vomit, or when he tries to make that damn dishwasher work and he always ends up throwing forks at it and what he hopes are highly motivating death threats, it’s a fucking load of smelling stupid dumb bullshits and it really just sucks.

  
Okay, if Louis has to be perfectly honest with himself and reasonable for just a second he might have to admit that maybe only his does, even if he would like to say that this is an issue that concerns the whole world, that doesn’t simply narrow down to Louis Tomlison and his damn problematic life, but the point is that it sucks.

Basically.

Because after what his life has been for the passed two years, waking up alone in a room that once used to hold someone else’s secrets too, doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right because there is a dent in the pillow next to Louis’, a dent that reminds him of warm lips and hands that held tight when the world spun to fast and the sun burned too bright.  Lips that Louis has not the right to kiss and bruise anymore.   
  
And Louis is not sure this is something he wants to get used to. Like, ever.

 

  
    -

 

When Louis allows himself to think about his life, it still feels surreal. Despite the time that has passed inexorably through their flesh and should have made everything somehow looks normal, at least to their eyes, their lives still seem like a damn joke.

  
He’s got the fame, that keeps him awake at night even when exhaustion is wearing him out and his head pounds harder than the music in his ears and his heart inside his ribcage. The money, that burns holes inside his pockets and seeps in his credit card like poison that numbs his fingers and has him addicted. His name, molded precariously on everybody’s lips like a scar, like there it belongs.

Louis thinks he has lost parts of himself over the years. Hopes he’s collected, people he’s stumbled upon. Some of them have sunk down so deep inside his bones, calcified between each juncture. He’s seen people coming and going, without being able to control it. They always bring and take something, whenever they enter or exit his life. It’s draining. But it’s what makes you feel alive, somehow.

And yeah, substantially there are some things that he has already forgotten what they mean.

The silence, something that he craves some days more than the air to oxygenate his lungs and broken heart, more than his mother’s kiss goodnight or the warmth of his own bed. To sit in the middle of a room naked and let the noise of his blood running through his veins and the steady rhythm of his breath lull him into a quite and dreamless sleep.

The privacy, whose meaning already tastes painfully foreign on their abused tongues.

Things that probably are less valuable when he puts them in prospective of what he has on the other hand.

Because Louis has never regretted not even once the day he went to audition for X Factor or the day he stayed to give his dream a shot. Because no harsh word, no shitty press will ever be comparable to the feeling he gets when he enters a stage and he can hear nothing but screams and people calling out his name. The sensation he has when the only way he knows how to say all the things he wants to is to sing. Sing at the top of his lungs, let the music take over his body and just let go.

  
That’s one of the few things that nobody can change.  This undiluted love for music, with the bitterness of its notes and the sweetness of its words, is the only thing that will always stay the same, even when the rest crumbles down.

  
And Louis can’t really believe that one of the few things that truly was worth all the struggles, all the sleepless nights, all the tears shed when anybody was there to wipe them away, left him behind. Because all the lies, all the pretenses, all the pain they were going through were more bearable when Louis did it for something.

And now it’s missing.

 _He_ is missing


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, come to my [tumblr](http://poopydoopylou.tumblr.com/) for any question or if you want to be stupid with someone. I'm always up for some dumbness
> 
> Before reading, I tend to swear a lot and I'm quite graphic, so, you know.

It has been two moths now.

  
Two months of Louis’ life without Harry in it. Louis’ life without Harry’s swollen lips ghosting over his neck in the morning, and Harry’s name moaned in the darkness of their bedroom late at night. Two months of his life without Harry’s fingers trailing down his navel and disappearing under the covers, curling around his erection and sinking into his hips, because that was the only way he knew how to say good morning.  
  
He misses how Harry’s hands used to riddle his body with bruises and scratches, with love and jealousy, with anger and lust. How he used to kiss Louis’ wrist and lick the throbbing veins running down his arm, feeling like each beat under his fingertips was just another way for Louis to tell him how much he needed him. Maybe what Louis truly misses is his presence in his life as something given for granted, certain, assured, something Louis didn’t really have to fight or put that much of an effort for. Probably the only thing in his life, Louis thinks. Because it has really always felt like the two of them effectively didn’t have another choice but to fall in love with each other and be together, as if breathing, living, existing was pointless if there wasn’t Harry’s hand clasped with his own to keep him from drifting.

  
And now, he's trying to find a balance within himself. To remember how to be himself without Harry, and the opacity of his voice when a whisper was too loud and the sound of their breaths mingling together never enough to keep him awake.

But if Louis has to be honest with himself, what hurts the most is probably that Harry is in his life but not truly is. He’s there, physically, perpetually painful reminder of what once Louis could claim with his hands, but now too far to be reached. Too far to be touched.

Harry is gone. But Louis feels as if he never truly came.

  
Because when Harry walked out the door, he brought all the good and happy memories away with him, as if the two years they had passed together narrowed down to just those few seconds in which Harry held the door knob and the noise of the door slammed closed, even if Louis wasn’t there to witness the rage pooled in Harry’ eyes when he did it. That was the last time Harry walked the threshold of Louis’ flat, and life. He walked out, and never came back.

Harry was right. Maybe Louis could have fought harder, could have done more to prevent this, or could have gone against the whole fucking system and fuck everything up without even blinking an eye. Because for some sort of unspoken rule, that Louis is not sure he's ever agreed on, it was decided it had to be Louis to put again his balls on the line and call bullshit, to put in danger his career and the ones of the others who worked with and for them.

But it’s not just him and Harry in this, and Harry just doesn’t bloody get it.

Louis thinks it was too damn selfish of Harry to expect the world around to work as he wanted it to without even questioning if that would have hurt someone else in the process. Because Harry also well knew that Liam and Zayn were enduring the same shit, the same exactly problems, but they would have never done something like that, to mine the already precarious balance of their lives and risk to lose everything they have worked for in the passed two years.

And Harry was there when they had held their future in their too rough and impatient hands and chose to put up this shit. This shit that has wavy brown hair and gentle eyes whose name’s Eleanor.

And Harry fucking knew that that was not a choice that Louis would have ever made because it bloody wasn’t a problem to begin with. Because Louis has never felt ashamed for what they had and the love he proved for him, and for god’s sake Louis doesn’t even like vagina, not even a bit. It smells weird and its entire physiognomy is confusing, really.

The deal quite worked through the first year, even though due to their both very strong characters, those few times they found themselves engaged in an argument, the dynamics were quite scaring. Awful things shouted at each other and toothbrushes thrown in the heat of the moment, and that bloody passive-aggressive attitude that both of them hated but that for some sort of sick reason loved in an almost embarrassing way. Their fights lasted days before they wore out, but they always did, in a way or in another. It could be Harry cooking Louis his favourite dish for dinner and later letting Louis pin him down on the bed and fuck him till anger faded with each hard thrust inside him, or Louis gulping down his pride and going to cuddle him on the sofa where he was probably sulking since the night before.

He remembers this day when Harry saw a picture of he and El kissing, sat on the stand to watch some dumb sport event. He doesn’t remember what the hell it was.

  
But he remembers the shouts, the arms thrown in the air in exasperation, the anger dripping from Harry’s mouth. He remembers the “you fuck her don’t you?” and he remembers the disgust painted on his own face when those words were spoken. The “I think it’s better if we end things now Harry” he said before he shut the door behind himself and he remembers how Harry shoved him against the landing wall and sucked him off as if it was his way to apologize.

That’s how they had always worked, in ways that probably looked fucked up to the rest of world, but they had always loved each other in that way, and it was the only one they knew. The only one that suited them and fitted in how their relationship unfolded.

The fights however, always ended.

Just. Just one day they started not to, and somehow the fights never ended. It seemed like sorry wasn’t enough anymore.

Like what they had wasn’t enough anymore.

Harry started to walk out and disappear for days before he came back home, finding shelter by Nick who was always willing to help him. The sofa became where he slept most of the times, leaving the space next to Louis in their bed cold and untouched, leaving Louis always silently hoping to wake with Harry by his side again and pretend nothing happened.

Harry was slowly slipping from his fingertips, and Louis didn’t know what to do to stop the fall. 

  
Something crumpled then. Something snapped, broke and bit by bit fell down on the ground in tiny sharp small pieces. Louis can’t pinpoint when it began, when everything started feeling like it was slipping away from his hands and slowly dissipating through his every breath, almost a gradual descent through exhaustion and frustration into nothingness. Harry was drifting away, and everyday Louis felt like inch by inch Harry’s skin was becoming someone else’s, like he didn’t have the right to touch it anymore.

  
Like with every harsh word thrown at each other, a piece of them broke with it.

  
Then on a cold Tuesday afternoon Louis was fumbling with the keys to enter their flat, cursing Harry who had promised months before to call someone to fix it, and when he walked in, Nicholas Grimshaw was bending his boyfriend over the kitchen table with a firm hand on his neck and the other clutched at his narrow waist.

Just then he really understood how far things had been dragged to. And if Louis has to be perfectly honest, he really didn’t shed a single tear. Not that day, not ever after that. Because having seen Harry having another cock buried inside his ass didn’t hurt as much as Louis’ expected. Maybe because it felt like Harry was gone far before that. Like Louis’ name, etched on his heart since the day fate had put them together and let them no other choice but to fall in love, had already faded before he let Nick fuck him.

But no. It didn’t hurt that much.

And maybe that’s why when Harry saw the blank expression painted on Louis’ face when he walked on them, tears started to fall from his blazed eyes, and still half-naked with flushed cheeks and messy hair, he started to shout at him, things that Louis doesn’t even remember, not even if he tries, while Nick took his hands to stop him.

  
Nick, with his blue jeans around his thighs, whose face was unreadable, cryptic, holding something Louis didn’t have the strength to make his mind work to process . Nick, who put his cock back inside his pants and told Harry _hey hey, calm down baby_ inside Louis’ fucking kitchen as if he had any damn right to call him that.  
  
Louis remembers perfectly that he smiled at him. A private, sad smile. But he did. Because that was his way to tell him to take care of Harry in the way Louis evidently hadn’t been able to. And that was probably what hurt the most. The sudden realization that it was his fault. That the pain unfurling inside his ribcage with that  was leaving him breathless was there because of him. Because he hadn’t been able to love him enough.

Or be enough to be loved.

  
He was frozen there, in the door frame, supposed to do something. To get angry, pull a scene or simply to _feel_ something, anything _._

But when Nick held both Harry’s wrists to stop him from hurling other things at him, he just breathed out ” I’m going out with Liam to buy Dani’s present. When I come back I’m expecting your stuffs all out of this flat Harry. So you better finish what you are doing rather quickly ,and get your asses out of here. Have a nice day,” so gently and softly, no hint of anger behind it, before turning around and walking out the door.

  
He felt so empty. In the most painful and scaring way. Like walking out of what was happening in that room was like walking out of Harry and the life they had built together since then. Like he was slowly falling apart, leaving behind all he thought was sure in his life, and darkness just took over.

  
Because Harry was the person he gave up his dignity for, parading around with a girl when he bloody loves cock because the world isn’t ready for him to be the way he is. And that same person made sure to put the sheets of their bed in the basket, cautiously letting the come-stained part visible to Louis to see. Just to be sure he got the message. As if the  picture now tattooed behind his eyelids of Nick’s hands pressed against Harry’s hips while he thrust hard inside him wasn’t enough.

Louis set them on fire on the balcony later that day, hoping the sorrow clinging inside his ribcage would have floated away with the burning ashes filling his lungs. But it was just for hygienic purposes, really. He simply didn’t want Nick’s semen anywhere near his flat.

He stayed there till dawn, his body refused to sleep and his mind drifted away somewhere he was willing it not to. Away to a curly haired boy who probably just wanted to show him he had moved on, finding what he was looking for in the taste of someone else’s skin and mouth.

All Harry’s stuff was gone. The clothes that had been carefully folded inside his wardrobe, his belongings, like the keys of his car and his never-properly-functioning laptop, some of their photographs that had hung dangerously on those same walls Harry used to fuck Louis against when their banters ended up comically always in the most beautiful wrong way.

The flat felt empty, despite the fact that Louis’ stuff was discarded all over the place, messily abandoned in every corners and littered on the coffee table in front of the couch like it was meant to.

Louis stared at the deep dents carved in the cushions resting on it with a sort of levity inside his chest. He fumbled with them and placed them back on it so that the whole couch looked untouched, as if two young boys hadn’t engraved their lives over it every day since the one they had walked past that threshold and made home in this little messy flat.

 And when he started, he couldn’t really stop. He cleaned up everything, he washed the couch and pillow covers. Threw away that stupid organic stuff Harry kept buying and abandoning around in the kitchen cabinets because it bloody sucks but Harry had to be his usual hypstery self and look all alternative eating things that taste like moldy wood just because nobody else does -there is a reason, Louis thinks. He even managed to nearly corrode his retinas with some bleach that squirted from the bottle when he dropped it in the middle of his attempt to clean the kitchen. That’s why, the thinks bitterly, he had never been the one in charge to do that.

 After two hours when the rage of Louis’ sudden cleaning craziness faded out, he passed out on the mattress, and when he dared his eyes to open despite the tiredness weighing over him, he saw it. There, stuck on the wooden shelf above the bed -where just four hours ago laid Harry’s poetry books, Louis sadly thought- there was a yellow post-it with few words scripted over in Harry’s curved and accurate calligraphy.

 

_I think I left something here, somewhere in this flat._

  
_Maybe in the corner of the couch, maybe between the sheets of our bed, or against the wall outside the bathroom where you used to kiss me in the morning._

_I thinks it’s my heart Louis._

_If you find it, take it with you. I don’t need it anymore anyway._

Louis made sure to destroy it too. He watched the frayed pieces of paper falling on the ground from his fingers, then dispersing with the wind of the cold night through the maze of London's roads.

Louis thinks the ink had engraved the paper deeper than it was meant to.

He wonders if it hurt. He wonders how much.

Just briefly sparing a second to think about the fact that paradoxically he’s sure that when Harry left, he took Louis’ heart away with him, he closed his eyes, and didn’t sleep.

 

  
  
  
  
                                                                                                                  ~*~*~*~

  
  
  
He is sat on the windowsill when Zayn calls.

It's Louis's favourite place to hide, to curl his body into itself trying to keep it from falling apart. He thinks he can still smell the scent of his skin when he closes his eyes, the chill of that winter, the chill of all the winters that came and went with painful slowness, days blurring into one another in a cold maze of bare bodies pressed together and finding warmth in their hollows and curves.

He is at his fifteenth cigarette of the day, cursing violently Zayn in his head for having dragged him so gently inside the dangerous world of addiction to nicotine and always tobacco-scented fingers. The day cancer will kill him he will make sure to make him pay for it.

Or before.

Yeah yeah before.

The day is slowly dying in front of his eyes, the sun low in the sky, awash with opal, oranges and aquamarines woven seamlessly together reflecting over the marmoreal surface he’s sat on, the feeble light casting games over Louis’ sharp feature and highlighting the bruised hollows under his vitreous eyes.Louis is staring at where the sun is slowly touching the horizon, hiding from too tired eyes and worn hearts in the pitch blackness of the crepuscule. He hopes one day he will be able to see sun sets without feeling like some part of himself is lost inside of it, as it exhales its last breath and burns out. There is a forgotten mug next to him, rim chipped and coffee stained, once full of warm tea he prepared to warm up his cold limbs and introduce something inside his empty stomach, while now, instead, is full of fags butts and humid ashes.The almost tuned out noise of the cars absentmindedly passing below is the only sound Louis can hear. The rest is only sheer silence.

Then the phone rings, and Zayn’s name flashes over the screen.

“Hello?”

“Hi Lou. ‘m coming over,” and he hangs up.

Two months Louis thinks, and this thought doesn’t hurt. It’s a wound that is precariously healing, still bruised and still oozing blood sometimes, gathered in the grooves of Louis’ bones. But it’s hidden under layers of too tight clothes and too many lies.

The world can’t see it.

Louis thinks it doesn’t deserve to.

Two months, and Louis and Harry haven’t talked since then. Louis can’t even look in his eyes without seeing the phantom of what he saw that day in his kitchen in the cold green pooled in them.

There is a burden looming dangerously over them, a silence that holds things so carelessly and all in the wrong places.

Harry's moved on. He lived for a short time by Nick before he bought a new flat in his same neighborhood and went to live there. He looks happier and more relaxed, even though when Louis is around his smile slips away with the same ease as it came. That’s why he always tries not to stay around. And he hates to see the private giggles that escape Harry’s mouth when he’s typing on his phone a response, Louis assumes, to Nick, his eyes flickering with fondness and something more. He hates to enter a room and not being able to ask where is Harry, even if he always already knows.

Louis tries to remember the last time he's smiled. He can't.

There is a soft knock at the door, and his eyes snap open. He must have fallen asleep after the seventeenth fag butt was smudged against the ashtray, crooked and spent now, laying there together with too many others.

“I know you’re awake,” Zayn says gently, smile in his voice.

“No you don’t,” he shouts back, and he hears Zayn laugh from behind the door. He tiredly stands up from the windowsill, taking the mug and letting it drop into the sink when he passes past it, and pads to the door to open it, letting Zayn silently in.

"You gotta keep a spare key under the doormat mate. Last time you got drunk off your ass and wouldn't open the damn door I was gonna call the police, Superman, and the whole army."

"Hi to you too," he sighs, closing the door behind himself. He thinks there is a smile hiding in the crook of his lips when Zayn 's perfume invades his lungs. He takes another breath, and his hands stop shivering.

A grin blossoms on Zayn's face, but something flashes over it, and with a quick glance around the flat he adds “it’s been three days since you left your damn flat mate. You gotta get out of here” Zayn says, not even bothering to ease off his leather jacket and slipping out of his shoes, while he moves to the other side of the room and opens a window. There is a stale smell of smoke, weed and closed-up that slowly fades away as the cold air enters the room, sending a shiver down Louis’ spine and causing goosebumps to blossom all over his body. He hasn’t even acknowledge the little cloud of smoke that was stagnating over the table that now adagio dissipates. He has this bad habit of smoking inside with all the windows closed, but he likes to breath it even after the butt fag finds home in the greyed ashtray. If he has to  briefly look into it, he’s sure Zayn would find something to say, something psychoanalytic and Freudian , but he swears. He just likes it.

“Zayn we’ve been running around non-stop for eight months and you can’t really come here and bitch me because I don’t feel like going out,” he breathes out with a final sigh, because he always feels so bloody tired, like all the energy that used to swirl through his veins left his body all-together.

Zayn looks at him with a knowing face, scrunching his nose and crossing his arms over his stomach in the attempt to look maternal. “We both know why you locked yourself in your flat in seclusion. And you don’t bloody look like a nun to me so get your ass up and get ready”.

Louis rises his head from the kitchen counter where he defeated dropped it on and with a deep frown asks “ready for what?”

“Niall wants to get some pints tonight and he wants you to get trashed with him. And I miss you.”

  
Louis thinks there is a conversation going on between they two, a conversation that starts with the flutter of Zayn's eyelashes, and proceeds with the way the corners of Zayn's mouth curl. Louis thinks it goes something like _please promise you won't hurt youself_ and then _you know I will._

Louis taps his chin with his index finger, contemplating thoughtfully the option of getting shit-faced with his favourite Irish man and maybe getting finally laid after what feels like ages. The answer isn‘t really that surprising.

“Only if I can come back home on my elbows.”

Zayn smiles softly, eyes glistening with fondness and that love that never falters inside them, and assuming that voice that a mum would use with a little dumb child says “it’s not like you got another choice with Niall.”

 

  
  
*

 

 

Louis has felt like he was on the edge the whole night.  
  
There is a small group of drunk fake blondes around him, giggling at everything that comes out of Louis’ mouth, and despite the not so welcomed attention, he feels slightly better when he introduces some alcohol in his system and he even allows himself to smile when one of them brush her dainty hand over his in the attempt to catch his attention. He can’t help the furtive glances towards the spot where he last saw Nick and Harry dancing in the middle of the dance floor. He briefly makes his apologies and disentangles himself from the too many hands touching him and ventures towards the bar. He spots Niall sat on a stool, equally busy with a tall brunette who seems to have no intention of letting him go. She is nursing a drink whose colour is of a yellow that looks like liquide sulphur that Louis hopes doesn’t taste like it, swaying her curvaceous body to the rhythm of the fast music pumping through the thick walls.

Louis orders eight shots of Tequila and Rhum, not caring about the look the bartender gives him -because it’s bloody Saturday night and he has all the legal right to drown his pain in all the alcohol he wants- and waits for the girl to get the message. Niall wants to get trashed, and that’s how they will get out of here.

  
Finally Niall manages to get rid of her and give her back to her friends, recommending them to bring her home because she can barely stand on her shaky legs and her pale face says nothing but that she has to throw up in the next five minutes, and their binge drink competition can finally begin.

As they’re gulping down their fourth shot, and Niall is attempting to order others while flirting shamelessly with the girl behind the counter, someone ruffles Louis’ hair -he curses inwardly whoever dared to do so because Zayn spent almost two hours between styling up his quiff and dealing with Louis’ nervousness that had him touching his hair every two minutes and ruining Zayn’s chef-d’oeuvre- and when he turns around there is Gregory smiling broadly down at them - he’s so damn tall, for god’s sake- all flushed cheeks stained with pink lipstick smudged all over his face and glistening eyes.

“Hi you two. Have you seen Nicholas by any chance?” he asks while darting his eyes toward the dance floor. The black jeans he’s wearing hugs loosely his slender waist and the light blue shirt that has dangerously shifted low on his left shoulder makes Louis’ mouth go dry. The harsh lights of the strobe cast slivers of blue and white over his delicate profile, and Louis wants to lick the quick flashes of colours off his jaw. But then he processes the question and purses his lips in a thin line.

“He was having sex with Harry over there about five minutes ago so I guess this time they had the decency to bring the whole thing somewhere else. I think I’ve seen Nick’s dick more times that I’ve ever hoped to,” he says before turning his attention back to Niall, who as usual is oblivious of all that happens around him and keeps swirling his pint in the air and going on with his argumentation about the uselessness of bras.

Greg gapes at him, muttering oh, mmh, okay sorry before shaking his head and walking away.

“Shit,” Louis whispers to himself, cursing the day he got rid of the philter that sorted the garbage inside his brain before throwing it up from his mouth and he feels suddenly unbearably ashamed for having thrown it so carelessly at Greg, who doesn’t really deserve any of Louis’ fucked up crap. He gulps down the last shot in front of him, and with the promise of a very near future session of Scotch, he kisses Niall exaggeratedly on the cheek with that little of tongue that never does harm and pinches his ass before turning around and looking for Greg.

He walks past far too many couples who decided tonight was the perfect one to _conceive a child_ on the small leather couches in the middle of the dance floor, and with a grimace of disgust, he spots Greg outside with Zayn, who’s currently smoking an almost finished cigarette. He’d really prefer to talk to him privately, because the last thing he wants right now is to deal with Zayn and his apprehensive and worried eyes, and so he has to get rid of him. He quickly thinks of an efficient plan and while brushing together his hands, he pushes the door open and steps outside. He glances around just to make sure he’s not going to make an ass of himself and, assuming his mischievous grin, he asks “hey Zayn, have you seen Liam?”

He sees the sudden annoyance flash over his face, and if he were more sober he would feel maybe sorry for being such a dick, but his head’s spinning and the outlines of Zayn’s face are blurred, so he smirks and feels satisfied. “Did you lose him again?” Zayn snaps and then sighs annoyed, before storming inside and throwing away the still burning fag butt on the concrete.

Louis grins. There’s no better way to get rid of Zayn than telling him Liam is not attentively supervised even if Louis actually saw him talking with Andy in a corner near the bathrooms. Stupid jealous twat.

“I think I’m going back inside too,” Greg then says with a voice that suggests uncomfortableness, probably noticing the spaced out expression plastered on Louis’ face.

He shakes his head and turning around he grabs his arm to stop him.“Actually I came here for you. I wanted to apologise for before. I didn’t mean to come out to you that harsh. It’s not really your fault so forgive me please.” His voice is slurred, and he’s not sure he said all the words in the right way, but he feels confident and that’s the key of success.

Greg eyes him suspiciously, then says “only if you buy me a drink,” because probably he can see that Louis doesn’t really need one, even he will have it anyway. Louis gives him a double thumps-up with a splitting-face grin and takes his hand, leading them back inside.

After the third drink Louis is more than pleased with himself. The whole place spins around him and all the colours are blurred together in what Louis decides looks like one of those Futuristic paintings he saw in New York last year. Okay maybe he could be more drunk if he still can make this kind of thought. It’s better if he doesn’t push his luck, though.

Greg is animatedly explaining a rather too difficult concept to Louis, who is currently sporting a massive headache and he’s sure the dumb smile plastered across his face should be a very clear signal that he isn’t listening to a single word that’s coming out of Greg’s mouth. But he keeps smiling and laughs inwardly to his unpunished mischief.

“So, mmh, how are you coping with the whole thing?” Greg asks, catching finally Louis’ attention, who darts his eyes to where Greg is looking.

Nick and Harry are coming out of the bathroom with disheveled shirts and messy hair. And if Louis didn’t know how Harry looks like after he’s been properly fucked he would probably oblige himself to believe otherwise. But Louis knows those flushed cheeks and glistening eyes. He knows those abused and swollen lips, those embarrassed glances around because Harry knows he has it written over his forehead in capital letters: JUST FUCKED.

But it wouldn’t matter anyway. It’s not like it makes any difference anymore. At least Harry is getting laid. Daily, for what he knows. Whereas he can’t even look into someone else’s eyes without seeing glimpse of green looking back at him and dimples popping out on strangers’ faces.

He remembers he has to say something, so he blinks his eyes a couple of times to make things turn back into focus and says “do you think _Zayn left some pamphlets of a rehab centre on my kitchen table because he thinks I’m an alcoholist_ answers your question?” he finishes, drowning what remains of Greg’s whisky ’n coke, tilting his head back with an exaggerated gesture while keeping his eyes locked with Greg’s.

Louis hears him gulping next to him, obviously not expecting such harshness and honesty, and startles when Greg places a reassuring hand on his shoulder and gives a little squeeze.

“I’d like to tell you so many things right now Lou. But I know none of them is what you want or need to hear. So make me shut up and buy me another of this,” he says while holding up the hand clutched around the empty glass. “And let me finish it this time,” he adds, with a patronising glare.

Louis grins fondly at him. Yeah, he can still do this.

They both sit on some free stools, their sides brushing together and sending shiver down Louis’ spine, who rests his head against Greg’s shoulder and laughs when he starts to point out the lack of fashion sense of all the people walking past them. He catches sight of Harry staring at him from the other side of the club, Nick’s arm curled around his waist, eyes gleaming under the flashing lights. But then Greg pipes up “oh man those trousers clash completely with the shoes,” and Louis smiles broadly at him and his eyes never leave Greg’s for the rest of the night.

Liam and Zayn are currently dancing on the dance floor, Zayn swaying sexually -okay not that sexually but at least he tries - his hips behind Liam, who is grinding imperceptibly his bum against Zayn’s now too tight crotch. His hands are curled possessively around Liam’s waist in a way that Louis got to know too well in these last months.

With what happened between him and Harry, they are both worried they will end up the same way, when love is not enough anymore to fix the cracks and everything feels unbalanced under your feet. Zayn is not dealing well with the situation, always and perpetually pissed off and worried when Liam is off with Danielle and utterly terrified every time he comes back home to find Liam shagging with someone else.

Louis can relate.

Liam, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be that bothered by the whole thing, since it all turns out into jealous and possessive Zayn and wonderful wearing-out angry sex whenever Liam decides toplay with it and push him over the edge. At least they found a way to cope with it. But it is not that surprising, since it’s quite of public knowledge that Louis and Harry had a peculiar way in which their relationship worked, and that they never truly seemed to cooperate during hard times. That’s why Zayn and Liam are still together despite the difficulties and Harry is shagging with Nicholas while Louis is sat on a cold steel stool nursing a stale beer with a man who likes boobs and is rambling about how caramel trousers clash with white shoes.

 

Larry was the greatest load of bullshits ever.

 

  
  
-

 

  
He doesn’t know how he gets home that night. But his skin smells of crowded clubs and Zayn, so he closes his eyes again and waits.

 

  
  
  
                                                                                                                              ~*~*~*~

 

Niall is bugging repeatedly at his stomach in a restless motion, almost out of routine now, while he keeps his cerulean eyes trained on the petite blonde interviewing them, gracefully sat on the opposite couch. She has slender fingers, curled around a notebook covered in dumb questions and little rounded hearts, and slim crimson lips, framing so beautifully a blinding smile she shows with jovial ease. Her laugh is a sweet sound that reverberates in the room, strongly permeated with Zayn’s musky cologne, and her oceanic eyes seem much deeper than she’s willing them to show.

Louis can see the hearts and stars and rainbows coming out of Niall’s eyes and smiles fondly at him even though he’s still staring at her so intensely. Liam’s arm is draped over the cream leather couch, framing -subtly he thinks- Zayn’s tiny feature -the muscles he’s been building up in these months are just a blatant lie, pff- while Harry is tucked in the furthest corner with his knees against his chest. He’s wearing an old graphite grey sweater he stole from Louis years ago and never turned it back, and maybe this hurts more than it should, more than the fragments of memories of strangers’ lips kissing Harry’s like they had any right to.

Harry's trousers are rolled up and Louis just wants to wrap his hand around Harry's ankle, knowing exactly where to hold it, because his hand could barely reach around half of it, but the soft indents between his ankle bones created perfect home for his fingertips

There is a painful edge about this, something that shouldn’t really cause the squirm inside Louis’ stomach, or the tears pooling in his eyes. A single one falls down his cheek and collects in the corner of his mouth. The salty taste grazes his tongue, making it tingle and slowly get numb.

But with the ease it came, it goes away. He wipes it away and stops Niall’s finger with his hand, still mercilessly stabbing his stomach and probably digging a deep hole in it. Louis think Niall carved a place for himself in Louis’ flesh two years ago in the same way.

Persistently, intensely and since day one.

Louis thinks he never gave him permission, but Niall did it anyway, with the same carefreeness that tinges everything he does. With his smile, that outshines even the brightest star, even the most blinding sun.

He thinks the light spreading from it warms up in a different way, because it fills the cracks in Louis’ bones but never burns when he gets too close.

Louis squeezes gently his hand to catch his attention and Niall then looks up, and from the way his eyes softens and recognition washes over them, Louis is sure he understood. They share a private smile, and Louis thinks he has never loved him as much as now.

After some cute giggling, the girl then turns her attention to Louis, and says to him very politely “I’ve seen the latest photos of you and Gregory walking around two days ago in London. You two seem very cozy together,” with a broad genuine smile, that holds an hint of curiosity and that little of hope that has Louis feeling fond despite the fact that he doesn’t even remember her name.

“Yeah, yeah, we are. We’ve been, you know, spending a lot of time together recently, and we got on so easily and yeah. He’s a good friend.” His mouth crooks in the corners, letting his eyes drop to the ground while he skims absentmindedly his jaw.

Louis hears Harry loudly snorting from the corner of the couch, and he turns around to look at him with a bewildered face and furrowed brows. Louis can't read Harry's face, what is written in every crinkle around his eyes, or in the freckles on his nose.

  
Louis thinks he's not able to read his scars anymore.

So he shakes his head and huffs an incredulous sigh, bringing his attention back to the girl in front of him.

“Greg is a very genuine person. And a very loyal and honest one, too. It’s something very rare these days. Since it seems like everybody is always ready to fuck you up,” Louis finishes, crossing his arms over his stomach and sinking back into the couch.

The girl is staring at him with wide eyes, obviously confused by the anger staining his words, oblivious of the utter fuckedupness surrounding her in this too little room. Louis doesn’t dare to rise his eyes from the spot is so intently staring at, somewhere near the girl’s high-heeled shoes, and he doesn’t say another word for the rest of the interview.

His hands twitch, and he thinks his lungs needs a cigarette more than his brain is willing him to believe.

When it’s finally over, again he feels the urgent need to apologise for his outburst, so when the other lads exit the room after quick salutations, he approaches the cute girl still sat on the ivory couch and profusely makes his apologises, blaming the tiredness and the fact that he needs sugar in his system to carburet properly. She kisses his cheeks and proposes him to grab a coffee together shortly after she’s done working, to which he politely declines but kisses her cheek nonetheless.

When he storms out the room, heading to the one where the others are gathered, he hears Harry talking from the corridor.

“ _He’s a good friend,_ ” he hears him mocks, imitating Louis’ high-pitched voice in a deprecating way, “my ass, I didn’t know it was a common thing to shag friends. How naive of me.”

Louis feels tears falling from his eyes without being able to control them, and with a hand clasped over his mouth, he shuts them closed and slips heavily against the wall. It must be the loud sob he lets out that makes the lads acknowledge that he’s outside the room, because there are Zayn’s arms around his waist, hosting him up back on his feet and dragging him away.

“Fuck Harry you are a bloody asshole,” Louis hears Zayn says, and he doesn't want to hear this.

But he can’t leave without saying a single word, he's done with always leaving like this, like he doesn't care, so he escapes Zayn’s tight grip and turns around before shouting “funny, innit hun Harry? Because I distinctly remember you were friend,” he makes the quotation marks gesture with mocking grandeur, “with Nick the day I came home and found his dick deep inside you ass while you were bent over the table like a fucking slut, or have you forgotten?”. He finishes with his index finger pressed against his closed lips and cocking his head faking interest in whatever will come out of Harry’s mouth as an excuse.

The others gasp and turn to look at Harry, fact that makes Louis realise they didn’t have a clue, since surely Louis didn’t make public statement of such information. He couldn’t find the strength to look at them in the eyes and tell them what happened. Zayn doesn’t know too, even if Louis is sure he somehow doesn’t need to.

Words don’t deserve the pain they would entail. The pain that lies absently inside his chest, and sits heavily on his heart like a guilt that won’t ever go away.

“Aaah you haven’t had the courage to tell them, haven’t you? Well Zayn, you wanted to know so intensely why we broke up? That’s it mate.” He smiles coldly at Zayn, and he knows the fear that resides inside those irides.

  
He starts walking backward to get out of that damn room, because the look Harry is giving him is making him sick in the stomach.

But he needs to tell him one last thing, so before slamming the door behind him he adds “and he truly is my friend. I don’t need to fuck one to fill the void you left Harry. And don’t you fucking dare to mock me behind my back again like the four-years-old you are because the next time I catch you I will beat the living shit out of you,” he finishes, pointing a menacing finger at Harry’s shocked face.

Louis’ eyes are angry and dark, his pupils blown out around the tired blue circling them and tears now start to dry on his flushed burning cheeks.

The other lads are silent, staring at him with worried eyes and lips pressed together in the attempt of not letting other comments slip away. Harry is staring back at him with a blank expression now, biting his lips trying to stifle the tears threatening to fall. And Louis fights against the urge to move his hand to wipe them away. Without even acknowledging it, his hand is in the air half-away towards Harry’s face, but when he does, he snaps it back along his side, clenching his fist so hard it almost hurts.

Louis doesn’t miss the hurt and confused look painted on Harry’s face while he eyes the gesture, but he lets that thought slip away, and stoically decides to let Zayn drag him out the room and wipe away Louis' tears with his bruised fingertips stained with ink and a love that never falters, even when you want it to.

 

  
   -

 

  
That night Louis drinks half the bottle of Sambuca Greg brought from Italy two weeks ago and lets himself sink against the wall down onto the floor and relishes the sensation of the cold bricks wall scratching his naked back.

There are brief moments where the pain ebbs away, leaving him almost empty, as if  there’s nothing else that keeps him grounded on his feet.

The air is fucking freezing, so he folds up his knees against his chest and searches for a little warmth even though he doesn’t really want it. There are too many cigarettes left in his packet, and it feels strange because he doesn’t really feel like smoking even if he knows he will suck on every fag butt till it'll burn his lips, all in a row and all like his life depends on it.

He loves the burning in his throat, how painful it is to try to inhale far more smoke than his lungs can contain just to feel. And the smoke fills his ribcage and he lets it stagnate in there just so. The nicotine blends with the taste of anise lingering in his mouth, and he just wants to throw up and start all over again.

Zayn finds him sprawled on the floor in the middle of the living room, swimming in his own vomit and self-pity, wearing nothing but Harry’s old Ramones tee. Louis likes to thinks that Harry’s perfume still clings to the thin torn fabric, that it hides in its fading colour and in the stain underneath the frayed collar.Even though he knows it only smells of that awful flowery softer his mum brought some time ago.

Zayn forgets to mention what he sees that night to other lads. And for once he doesn’t scold Louis for it. Somehow he understands it, this time.

 


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you are wondering the guy who inspired my Jake, have[this](http://the-scent-of-your-memory.tumblr.com/post/61780791463/hes-my-jake-i-do-have-a-thing-for-ginger-hair) :) 
> 
> Err, I feel like i should apologize for something, even though I don't really know what for. Anyway, have fun

 

Louis thinks memories would taste sweeter if they weren’t tainted with alcohol.

But he wonders if you can eradicate them, if you can ever smooth the carved footprints in the indents of your heart when someone walks into your life.

  
Louis---Louis thinks you can’t.

  
You can’t forget the ghost of never gentle fingerprints on your skin, pressing hard against your flesh like they are trying to carve a promise in it. You can’t, or maybe you shouldn’t. Not when someone is branded into your skin so deeply. Not when he marked you with unspoken words and dreams left now to be silenced in the grooves of your bones.

  
Some wounds can’t be erased. There is too much for time to heal them. Some scars fade, but you will always know where they were, keepsakes that once you were broken.  
  
Louis thinks his own run so much deeper than what his skin is trying to conceal, that maybe they don’t even exist but hurt so fucking much anyway.

  
He wishes he knew how he fell in love. Wishes he could pinpoint it on the map of his heart, so he could go back and revisit it a million times over.

  
It started with a hi, and ended with silence, rumbling and obtrusive with its loudness.

  
Louis thinks he can still hear it echoing in his kitchen. It's distant, and yet deafening when it comes back to his ears. He wants to sleep, to forget, to lose himself till he won't be able to find a way to piece his pieces back together.

  
But the sky is pitch black tonight and the stars light is so feeble he thinks he could close his eyes and feel nothing when the sun rises. There are some bruises on his hips in the shape of Zayn’s fingers that feel like secrets beneath the weak light filtering through his window. And when he presses hard enough on them Louis swears the world looks out of focus, and maybe, like this, he can sleep.

  
-

  
Louis has a problem. He knows it.

He just doesn’t know how to cope with it. Zayn is always there to help him, to mend his wound with his eyes that always say too much and weed spliffs late at night when there are demons in Louis’ sleep, and outside is too dark and yet too bright to stay awake.

But sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes the need to feel himself falling apart is stronger than Zayn’ arms around his waist or than any liquor treasured in his kitchen cabinet.

Sometimes the vomit is not enough. Sometimes the burning down his throat is not enough to numb the pain.

And Louis starts doubting if maybe it’s just himself that isn’t enough anymore.

He still dreams some nights of Harry’s hand ghosting over his chest, tracing the words he inked up on his skin for him, one of the too many tattoos that will always remind him that once Harry was his, that once were Louis’ fingers the ones leaving bruises over his narrow waist and making him come when want was too much and the fear of losing each other never enough.

That once were Louis’ lips the ones stretched around Harry’s cock and blowing him off when he woke up in the morning or sucking hard on his pale skin and leaving long path of red blotches on their way down.

Now, there are just memories.

Memories of a boy who has the world cradled in his slender fingers and at his knees in front of him. A guy that still has the fame and the money, and someone one who can love him without hiding it, who doesn’t need to deny his feeling because this time it’s Harry who can decide. Harry has everything and burns bright.

  
Louis stares at his scratched hands, and sees nothing.

 

  
*

 

  
  
The alcohol makes the faces of all the pretty boys he’s fucked this month blur into one, a mixture of too different eyes staring down at him, hands clasped around his neck, while his head bobs between their thighs. But the outlines of Harry’s remain vivid in his mind like that pain that always comes along with it, even when he’s passing out between Zayn’s arms.

He knows he doesn’t deserve the way Zayn keeps sticking by his side. That he should try to get better, at least for him, for how he deals with him like Zayn owed him.

  
But that’s how Zayn and Louis have always worked. They follow unspoken rules, they unfold with ease in the most common routines. They don’t need to ask, or to say thank you, because it always feels like they have no other choice when it comes to each other.

 

  
  
                                                                                                                                               ~*~*~*~

 

Zayn has dragged him out of his flat trying to distract him from the always-persistent thought of Harry trapped between Nick’s chest and a wooden kitchen table, that somehow keeps floating back in his mind like ocean tides, something natural, unstoppable and uncontrollable. Some sorts of mechanism his brain operates to keep him always at bay, always at the edge of something dreadful and at the same time peaceful to long for. Just blurring images of something that grazes delicately the surface of his memory, carving it with the sharpness of their intensity.

There is a boy grinding his crotch against Louis’ ass, a hand on his lower back, the other sneaked around his waist and placed on his belly, keeping him steady and pressed against his own chest.

He has ginger curly hair and icy blue eyes, even if Louis could only see a thin sliver of colour around his blown out pupils. The light stubble adorning his sharp jaw tickles Louis’ neck when he kisses the pulsing point underneath the sweaty flesh. His voice is husky and scratchy when he murmurs “wanna have fun?” in the shell of Louis’ ear and his lips are plumb and so suckable when they brush cheekily against Louis’ cheek.

  
When Jake kisses him, Louis thinks he’s losing something in its taste and it feels like drowning into a place where the edges are smudged and chamfered, where the sounds are muffled and yet defined.

  
He’s so fucking beautiful it almost hurts.

He’s tall and his body is sturdy and solid against Louis’ back. He doesn’t know his name, not even when Louis drags him in the bathroom and falls to his knees in front of him. Not even when he unbuttons his jeans and frees his huge hard cock from his briefs, not even when he takes it all the way down his throat and plays absentmindedly with the ginger hair trailing down his navel.

He doesn’t know his name when he wakes up the next morning and this boy is pressing his bulge against Louis’ bum and there is dried come at the base of his spine where he let Louis spill his orgasm few hours before, not even when he shuffles into the kitchen and manages to make him pancakes without burning down the whole flat.

He does know his name when in the afternoon Louis finds a phone number scrited over the skin of his bum, but he forgets it when he passes out inside the bath tub full of hot water and blurred memories of a too beautiful boy with melting ice inside his eyes.

 

  
*

  
  
His name is Jake, and Louis loves the way it rolls around his tongue when he moans it.

His skin feels smooth like marble under Louis’ fingertips and there is a little mole under his left nipple that Louis loves to lick when he's coming underneath him. His bright hair is always styled up in a swirling quiff, but Louis prefers when it hangs loosely over his eyes whenever he fucks him against the kitchen counter in the morning before breakfast.

He doesn’t expects anything from Louis. He comes and goes, without invitation and always with a kiss goodbye when he leaves, every time as if it was the last. As if he was planning to never comig back.

But somehow he always does.

Louis thinks he could love him if he wasn’t so fucked up, if Harry wasn’t tattooed behind his eyelids and always there when he closes them. But Louis thinks Jake doesn’t want him to, so he keeps coming and leaving like a practised routine every time he can, he lets Louis fuck him and everything is fine.

Jake carves little spaces for himself in Louis’ life. It can a be a red t-shirt discarded on the floor and abandoned there for days, before it finds home in a small drawer of Louis’ wardrobe. Or it can be a yellow toothbrush that appears one morning on the sink and never leaves his spot near the faucet. Ot it can simply be how that little drawer becomes fuller and fuller with things that don’t belong to Louis, and how the toothbrush is just the first of a serie of things that weren’t there and now are.

Louis thinks that even though it will never be the same thing, maybe it’s better like this. So he saunters out of the kitchen with a bowl full of buttery popcorns and tucks himself under the blanket with Jake and just kisses him.

 

  
*

 

  
  
One morning he arrives late at rehearsal, limping in a very stupid way that he doesn’t want to feel smug about but just does, and enters the room faking nonchalance despite the pissed glance he receives. He unwinds his scarf and dashes to Liam, who keeps singing his part with his eyes shut closed. Then Niall starts laughing, and suddenly every eyes is locked on him.

“Oh man. Are you dating a fifteen-years-old?”

Louis doesn’t bloody get what Niall is on about, and while he turns around and mutters under his breath “what the fuck-,” he catches his reflection on the window and pales.

Because there is an huge hickey on his neck and one on his collarbone, fresh and blood red just over his tattoo.

He was too unconscious this morning to notice, and now everybody has see them and is laughing at him because he really looks like a fifteen years old, embarrassed and uncomfortable under the judging gazes of his band mates, and because from the corner of his eyes he can see Harry staring at him with wide eyes, mouth open slack and quivering lips.

He wasn’t supposed to discover it like this. But it doesn't matter anyway.

 

  
                                                                                                                                             ~*~*~*~

 

  
  
Harry’s birthday comes too early for Louis’ liking.

He doesn’t know how to deal with it, if it would be better to act as he would always  have and get along with it, or stay home and avoid whatever kind of bullshit that will surely results from going, curl on his couch and spend the night between shitty TV’s programmes and hot cocoa with extra whipped cream because glycemic coma appeals him okay?

But Louis has always known he doesn’t have any trace of sense of self-preservation in himself, so he lets Zayn drag him inside the unfamiliar flat, and Jake follows happily behind them.

The flat is packed when they arrive -fashionably late, as Jake likes to think. There are waitresses strolling around with any kind of drinks precariously served on silver traits, mercilessly assaulted by voracious drinkers by any side. Louis sees all this alcohol gently offered to him and feels like Christmas’ morning all over again, but he promised Jake he would  try to avoid alcohol the best he can. Louis thinks he can try for him.

When he moves inside the vast living room, Greg is leaning against a wooden drawer, animatedly talking with Matt about what from their rather loud voices Louis assumes is football, and so he turns around to ask Jake to grab a Gin tonic for him so he can go greet them. Jake looks at him warily, then nods and kisses his cheek, before turning around and padding away.

Louis literally jumps on Greg -when he gets close enough to not kill someone in the process- who winds his arms around him and laughs against Louis’ neck. They chat for a while, planning the famous trip to Manchester fucking Greg promised him two months ago but after ten minutes and Jake isn’t still here, Louis wonders whether Jake got lost or simply crowed by Zayn, who is an over-protective twat and who just wants to make sure Jake isn‘t going to break Louis’ heart.

Louis wonders if you can break something which is already broken, how many pieces will it shatter into when it falls again.

When he makes a quick tour around the flat, he sees Nick dancing almost sexually on a plastic chair with Matt tucking some banknotes inside his pants. It would be funny, peeing-in-my-pants kind of funny type of image, if Nick wasn’t the guy who fucked Harry on his kitchen table, so he just rolls his eyes and goes on.

Liam stops him for few minutes to tell him what disastrous drinking session Niall has just performed in the other room and in these few minutes he lets his eyes wander around.

The flat is unfamiliar. Of course it fucking is.

There are photos hanging on the orange painted walls, but he doesn’t dare to look if he can find himself in one of them. His eyes linger on those few things that Louis thinks are so utterly Harry, like the organic granola bars near the kettle - that Louis knows he doesn’t eat, but keeps buying anyway- or the bananas and oranges stored in a purple bowl on the counter near the sink, where three plates lie with some dried rice grain on, in precise order one on top of the other. He’s sure he has already seen that purple bowl before, but he decides he won’t dwell on it further on.

With a pat on his shoulder, Liam shuffles back into the living room to check if Niall is still alive and in this space-time dimension somewhere safe. Louis resumes his previous tour around the flat, intent to find Jake as soon as possible because his throat hitches and his vision is too clear.

He finds Jake crowded in a corner of the corridor, holding steadily the glass of Gin tonic for him, and Louis is surprised, because the boy in front of him isn’t Zayn, but Harry. His blood turns cold, and he briefly fears Harry is trying to cock-block him before he realises Harry’s hand is curled around Jake’s wrist with a firm grip and that his dimples are both on display.

For fuck’s sake, he’s flirting with Jake and Louis just wants to throw up.

He ventures through the crowd gathered in the little space of the corridor, and when he approaches them, Jake sees him first and his entire feature relaxes almost immediately.

“Hi love, I thought I lost you,” Louis says, with a huge smile and crinkled eyes, making grabby hands for his drink.

Jake hands it with his little smirk. “Oh Boo. Sorry I got caught with your friend here.” Louis sees Harry flinch at the nickname, and Louis is surprised too because this is the first time Jake’s ever used it.

Harry‘s eyes dart to look at Louis, who is looking at him with a contrite expression, lips draw in a thin line, and then back at Jake, who has moved next to Louis and sneaked an arm around his waist.

”Wait, you are here with him?” Harry asks Jake disbelievingly, but Louis responds for him.

”Yes, he‘s with me. Any problem with it? Aren‘t you supposed to keep an eye on your boyfriend, who, to be honest mate, is putting up a very embarrassing show in the other room.”

Harry doesn‘t responds. He stares at Jake with controlled anger and suspicion, then without a single glance at Louis, shuffles back out of the kitchen into the living room.

”What it‘s his problem?”

”I don‘t know Jake. I don‘t really know.”

  
  
    -

Louis finally introduces Jake to the other lads, who seem far too pleased by the fact that he’s indeed a very pleasant person to look at, and bombard him with questions about himself and how they met. Louis hopes Jake will spare for himself the details of that night, and coat the truth with some romantic stuff, and add sweetness somewhere between the lines.

He excuses himself to make a quick stop to the loo, where fortunately he finds no queue, and with a little sigh, he closes the door behind himself. He splashes some cold water on his face, breaching himself on the marble counter with both arms, letting his head drop downwards. He’s so fucking tired, and yet somehow he always feels restless, like he can’t really stop a minute and breath.

The door slams behind him, and when he turns around Harry is there, shirt damp with sweat and anger, eyes clouded with something Louis can decipher.

He turns back around and washes his hands absent-mindedly, and whit a flat tone he says “occupied mate.”

“What the fuck was that?”

Louis sighs defeated, staring at him from the mirror. “What are you talking about Harry,” he says, rather than asking, his voice empty.

“You. Him. W--why are you here with him?”

”Because I fuck him and he‘s a nice guy. I don‘t really need further reasons to bring him here and surely I don‘t owe you further explanations either,” he concludes, drying his hands with a cloth and walking past Harry who is frozen in front of the door.

  
But Harry moves and bumps against him, who stumbles backward with a shocked face.

“How could you do that? Coming here, at my flat, for my fucking birthday with--with another man and introduce him to the other lads and and--.” Harry pauses, speechless. “How?”

Louis thinks Harry has too many things wrapped in a body of arrogance and anger. He thinks his body holds too many feelings in its crooks and in its curves, that drip like honey drops on his moonstone skin with painful slowness. Louis wonders if it still tastes like when it was his, or if the hands touching it now are slowly changing it.

He doesn’t even want to remind Harry what he has done, because the words will leave a too bitter taste in his mouth and he already knows alcohol won’t make it go away. So he just steps closer, closer, till he’s almost nose to nose with him, and with his tired blue eyes he looks at him like he isn’t truly seeing something in front of himself. He stares at his own reflection grazing the surface of Harry's eyes, and he thinks _I’ll never forget how to love you_.

“I feel like you have my heart gripped in your fist and you are always trying to tear it from inside me. What else do you want from me? How much do you want to take from my body and watch me bleed on this fucking floor since you’ll be finally happy, Harry?”

And Louis thinks it’s too late now, that he doesn’t want to allow his eyes to give away things that his mouth is trying to hide. So he walks out of the door and pretends his life still has a reason to keep going on. He doesn’t hear people calling out his name, he doesn’t see Niall passed out on the carpet in the living room, he doesn’t stops when Zayn grabs his arm to ask him what happened. He keeps walking, and when he sees Jake smiling at him from the other room, everything gets blurry.

  
-

  
  
Louis doesn’t fuck Jake that night. Because there’s too much Gin seeping in his veins, numbing each atrium and ventricle, and he can’t really make his body move from his spot against the kitchen cabinet where he falls asleep.


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay like, this chapter pained me so much and I'm not sure i can actually deal with it properly. Anyway, have it.

The girl is currently asking Harry about how the Brits’s after-show went, as if the entire world hasn’t seen the HD photos of him and Nick stumping drunk on the curbs outside Nick’s flat with love-bites all over their necks and red-rimmed eyes wandering lost in the late night.

  
“It was mental, really. I was restless and bouncing around like a maniac the whole night and we had so much fun really,” he finishes, with his dimpled smile and soft eyes.

  
“Which was the best part of the evening for you guys?”  
  
Liam smiles broadly at her and answers straight away. “Well, certainly when when won our Brit, which, you know, unbelievable. I kept smiling like an idiot even in the backstage.” Zayn laughs beside him, tucking himself further up against him.

  
There is a brief moment where they all start laughing, recollecting privately some embarrassing memories of that night, like when Louis accidentally walked straight into a wall entering Zayn’s apartment, or when Niall set fire to his quiff in the attempt to light up a fag. Then all the sound subsides, and Louis sees that Harry isn’t laughing, but instead staring out of the window with a sad smile on his face, and he doesn’t know why he says it, but what comes out of Louis’ mouth is,  
  
“I think for me it was when James kissed Nick. Quite a show might I say. I’d prefer a little it of tongue, but I can’t complain,” but he regrets it as soon as the words are thrown out his stupid mouth, because surely he wasn’t expecting Harry to join the laugh with the others.

He thinks he hasn’t make Harry laugh in so much time that he has almost forgotten what it feels like to be the reason for those dimples.

  
Louis thinks that unfamiliar sound vibrates with frequencies that reverberate straight through Louis' veins and flesh. And maybe it feels like it's filling something Louis wasn't sure was missing. But he doesn’t allow himself to relish its sweet taste inside his mouth, so instead he closes his eyes, and pretends he can still feel something apart from void.

 

  
 -

 

  
  
 _“We must do something Zayn. He’s killing himself like this.”_  
  
  
Louis thinks he has been sitting behind this door for at least two hours.  
  
He was looking for Niall to ask him if he wanted to come with him to buy some junky foods. But when he walked past the changing room, he heard some muffled voice coming through the wooden door, and despite the clever part of his brain told him not to, he slumped down the wall, trying to make out what the people in there were saying. Their voice were loud, and now low like whispers. They are talking about him. Obviously they are and maybe Louis prefers the void, rather than what he’s feeling right now inside his chest. It’s like someone’s tearing pieces of him from his body, bit by bit, and he can’t breathe. He can’t because his lungs feel like smoke and the sky is too dark outside and he doesn’t want to feel.  
  
He’s sure Zayn is crying in there. There are muted sobs and some random sneezing sounds every now and then. Louis thinks he can hear his own heart breaking inside his ribcage with every tears that runs down Zayn’s sharp cheekbones. Tears he can't see, but feels them burning on his skin anyway.

 

_“I think there’s nothing we can do Li.”_

  
  
                                                                                                                ~*~*~*~

 

 

  
  
_oi mate, party at Nick’s tonight. do ya wanna come?_   
  
  
_oh bloody hell Ni. again?_   
  
  
_booze mate. booze_

 

  
-

 

  
  
So Nick is throwing a party, and Louis would like to kill him.

  
There are plenty of reasons why he would like to - and he feels even like he should, too - but the most budging point is that he always organises these dumb parties with his hipstery friends and of course Harry is invited and of course the others feel the need to join and of course Louis has to go because he can’t afford to look like he’s avoiding Harry because he has this stupid need to show that despite the black bags under his eyes and the tiredness he wears on his face he’s okay, really.

  
Jake can’t come with him, because he has to work tomorrow and he knows that with Louis there aren’t any kind of chances to be home before three o’clock in the morning so this time he ditched them all. 

  
He got to his knees in the middle of the living room and ate Louis out for a whole hour when Louis had pouted at him, though, so maybe Louis isn’t that angry with him anymore.

  
He doesn’t even know what the hell to wear, so he just throws some random tight jeans  and black henley on and slips in his red Vans before heading to Zayn’s flat to make him deal with the fluffy mess on his head. He opts for a simple quiff, even if he knows that only two hours into the party it will be a mess of hair all over again.  
  
They sit on the balcony smoking a fag, sharing some cheap beer while they wait for Paul to come and get them.

  
“Why are you coming Lou?”

  
Louis trains his eyes to look at him, but he’s staring at the black sky above them, and Louis thinks that Zayn should always be touched by the sunlight, because his skin glows and shines under its unforgiving rays, and now it only blends with the darkness washing over it.

  
“Because this is one of those things that won’t go away if I avoid them Z. The faster I get used to it, the faster I’ll be able to move on.”

  
“I got a feeling this is just another way to hurt yourself, and I’m not sure I’m okay with this.”  
  
“Zayn. It’s not like I have another choice. They are together and even if I don’t come tonight, there will always be photos and videos all over the place anyway. At least there will be alcohol so fuck it.”

“Don’t,” and Louis hates how his voice cracks, how little and sad it sounds coming from his mouth.

  
“Please promise me you won’t.”

  
Louis thinks he’s broken in more ways he’s willing to count, but there are some pieces of himself that hold a promise he made three years ago, when Zayn was just another stranger and nothing more.

  
“I’ll try.”

 

And maybe it won’t be enough. But Zayn smiles, and Louis does too.

 

  
-

 

  
  
Nick has been pissing him off the whole night, throwing at him sharp and snarky comments and dumb quips, and Louis doesn’t know why whenever he goes Nick is always there, ready to starts again his stupid banter. And he doesn’t even know what has got to him, why he’s doing this in the first place, as if he has to punish Louis for something he’s sure he hasn’t done or if he thinks they just became friends and Louis didn't known.

Like when he asked _where is you boyfriend tonight?_ or the casual _you look like shit Tommo,_ or the _ahah Harry is limping, I should be more gentle_ and _fuck_ , Louis can’t really stand it anymore.

He ventures through the tiny flat to look for someone who might help. He spots Niall leant against the couch, a petite blonde tucked under his arm with heavy-lidded eyes an flushed cheeks, and approaches him with a newly filled cup of Vodka tonic. They chat for a little, Niall seeming not at all willing to stop laughing at everything that comes out of Louis' mouth, and he can't help the fond grin he wears through the whole night. The blonde possibly passed out around 2 am between their third and fourth drink, her head rests lifeless on Niall' s shoulder while he keeps talking and nudging her every now and then just to make sure she's still alive. She lets out some random groans so they guess she is.

Harry has been sat in the same spot for the entire night, right in Nick's lap, with his arms winded around his neck and head tucked in the crook of his shoulder. Nick caught his eyes and smirks in a way that makes Louis' blood turn cold. His hand drops lower on Harry's back till it grips his bum and Louis can't look anymore.

He dashes into the kitchen - he wonders why the fuck everything in his life seems to always happen in fucking kitchens- and pours some dry Gin in a plastic cup. He just feels briefly sorry for the promise he’s slowly breaking with every drop of Gin that slips into his cup, like if he stops now maybe there will be still something to fix of it.

"You're funny haven't anybody ever told you that?"

He hears Nick sniggering from the door frame and Louis can’t do anything but close his eyes and let out a long shuddering breath. His hands are shivering around his cup, but the squeezes it like his life depends on its safety, on how strong he holds it. He turns around with his eyes still closed, and when he opens them, they are bloodshot, angry, or maybe just blank.

  
“What fucking game do you think we are playing, hun?” Louis snaps at him, anger dripping mercilessly from his dry lips and Louis thinks it doesn’t even taste bitter if he focuses on it hard enough.

”Oh so you do have balls. I thought you lost them some time ago. Nah mate, I’m not playing games, I’m only trying to figure out why are you here.”

  
An heavy silence stretches over them, a burden that drag them both down and Louis is so sick of always feeling so low. He thinks that even the silence sometimes would like to say something, things that people leave hanging between too tired lips and never close enough bodies.

  
“C’mon Tommo. Tell uncle Nick that you still care about him, c’mon, stop pret--”

  
Louis cuts him off, turning around abruptly to glare at him. “Of fucking course I’m care about him. I'm still in love with him, you idiot. And while I try to kill myself with alcohol every night because I’ve not been able to keep the only thing worth breathing for in my damn life you got to fuck him like it’s nothing because he bloody cares about you and you act like it doesn’t mean anything. What else do you want Nick? Is this not enough?” he points to the cups clutched in his hand, he points to his face, he points to some many things that lie on his body like keepsakes of how broken his heart is.

Nick remains silent, his mouth opens and closes in disbelieve like an idiot. And Louis would like to point out that he is, but there is a rusty dagger stabbing his chest, and his head aches and nothing feels as dull as his heart right now.

“I guess no, then. You had the stomach to fuck him on my kitchen table when you bloody knew we were together and that no matter what was happening I loved him more than anybody else. But this didn’t stop you, didn’t it?” he finishes, before shoving him hard with both hands, even if Nick doesn’t move a single inch.

  
Nick‘s eyes widen, and it only makes Louis get even angrier, because he looks like recognition is hitting him just now, like he hasn’t been able to get by himself how deep Louis' scar run down his flesh.

  
“It didn’t stop you and I fucking trusted you, Nick. You knew I was going to ask him to marry me and you bloody fucked me over.”

  
”Louis I--”  
  
And Louis now stops shouting, because he knows that his voice would never be high enough to drown out the chaos inside his mind anyway. His voice gets low, almost like a whisper, even if the music pounds through the walls and he’s not sure he wants them to listen anyway.  
  
“Why? What the hell have I done to you to deserve this? Fucking tell me Nicholas because I don’t get it. I haven’t talked to him in four months, I never bothered you with my fucked-up and jealous issues and still you are here taking pleasure in watching me fall further apart. Why?”  
  
The sound of his own voice subsides, and with the tears streaming down his cheeks, he whispers another _why_ , too low and frayed to be heard, a loud cry for help, because he’s feeling himself falling on the ground and he isn’t sure someone will be able to piece them together again.  
  
There is a big crowd gathered all around them now and he doesn’t know for how much it has been there. Louis bites his lip till he can taste the steel one of blood running down his chin. He closes his eyes, and with a shuddering breath he adds “I’m heading home now. There is a Scotch’s bottle waiting for me that at least always keeps its promises. Enjoy your party Nicholas.”  
  
Louis pretends he hasn’t seen green eyes looking at him among the crowd.

  
  
It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anymore.

 

  
*

 

  
  
The floor of the balcony feels bloody freezing cold against his ass. He hopes he has brought a blanket with him. The idea of dying of hypothermia is not that appealing. He’d prefer a more manly one if he can choose.

  
He finished his cigarettes an hour ago, crashing the pack against the railing and letting his legs hang dangerously from the edge. There is a longing in his lungs, he thinks, like he needs something to fill them because the air seems to be never enough.  
  
London doesn’t look that frightening when ethanol clouds his eyes and leaves him numb. Everything seems quieter, like nothing can really hurt him.  
  
He forgot how liberating it is to tear everything you have off your chest and finally breathe. He felt like he had a burden carved inside his ribcage and now he thinks he can drift away with the lightness unfurling in his chest.

  
Drifting.

  
He wonders if it’s really that scary down there. If Zay will ever forgive him if he lets himself fall. He looks down at the streets below and it is not scary. The cars passing relentlessly on the road make a sweet lullaby, and Louis finally feels like he can close his eyes and let sleep take over him.  
  
He wakes up with his faces smushed against the cold steel bars, the inky sky still stretching out above him. His back hurts and his ass is almost frozen now, and Zayn’s arms are shaking him with panic tainting the gesture.  
  
“For fuck’s sake Lou. I thought you were dead. Don’t you dare do that again,”

  
He stifles a yarn with his hand and wipes tiredness away rubbing his eyes. “Do what?”

“Looking like you are not breathing. I was having an aneurysm down here mate.”

Zayn looks more relaxed now, but there’s something off in his eyes. There’s something off-kilter in the way his mouth crooks when Louis stands up and massages his bum, aching for all the time it’s been pressed against the cold stone of the balcony. Off-kilter in the way his eyelashes flutter close touching his cheeks and brushing his skin with caution. Like they fear to hurt it.

Louis enters the kitchen to make tea for both of them, and when the kettle is ready, he shuffles with two fuming mugs back into the living room where Zayn is sat on the sofa, munching his lips nervously.  
  
“What happened Z?” Louis finally asks, with a little sigh and a impatient grimace. He wonders when they will stop pretending like they can keep something hidden from each other.  
  
Zayn sighs too, pinching his nose bridge and closing his eyes. “I fought with Liam. I have to go out with Pez tomorrow and he went ballistic as always, because we planned out trip to the tattoo parlour ages ago and now everything has to be cancelled.” He shakes his head and lets it hangs low against his chest when he says “oh Lou I’m so sick of dealing with this shit every goddamn day.”

  
“I’d like to say I don’t understand you, but I do.” Louis places a hand on his thigh, and breathes “we are so fucked up Z”.

  
Louis hears Zayn’s breath hitch in his throat, and when he drops his eyes to where Zayn is looking at, he realises how high his hand is placed on his thigh. He moves to retrace it, but Zayn stops it there with his own.

When he lifts his eyes, Zayn is looking at him with an expression Louis can’t read, pleading maybe, or just asking. Louis unconsciously licks his lips, and Zayn’s stare drops to follow the entire movements with meticulous attention.  
  
Louis doesn’t know why the air suddenly feels so charged, with something he can’t place his finger on, something so foreign and unknown, but that pushes him to lean toward him.  
  
Zayn covers the last inches, and with some hesitation their mouths find one another. There is shyness and insecurity behind the taste inside Zayn’s mouth, and Louis doesn’t know why he isn’t pulling away. There is a man that loves him at home, he shouldn’t be here to kiss this poor excuse of a man, that feels no sober enough to remember this in the morning.  
  
But here he is, brushing his fleshy lips over Louis’ chapped ones, pushing his tongue inside, lapping the roof of Louis’ mouth and chasing the taste of nicotine and Whisky hiding in its crevices.  
  
Louis then doesn’t give a fuck about Jake, doesn’t give a fuck about Harry, or Liam or whatsoever. He pushes Zayn against the couch and without a second thought he pulls   Zayn’s tee over his head and lets it fall on the ground. Louis leans down to place his mouth over the one inked up on his chest, and trails his lips over the ink-stained skin of his collarbone. Zayn groans low in his throat and tightens his grip on Louis’ hips,who feels his sweatpants getting tighter and tighter with each soft whimper slipping from Zayn's sinful mouth. Zayn starts to grind up against him, searching for friction and some sort of release, rutting his crotch against Louis' clad cock. Louis moans, and lets his head rest on Zayn’s shoulder, sucking greedily the olive skin of his neck while his hands are curled around his waist. With a swift motion Zayn spins them around, and with the same alacrity he peels Louis off his sweatpants and briefs, leaving him bare and fragile underneath him, squirming under Zayn's hungry eyes. Louis reaches Zayn’s belt, quickly unfastening it and then moving to tug down the fly, and freeing him from his briefs.  
  
Louis suddenly doesn’t know what the hell are they doing, but he feels like they crossed some sort of line, a the turning point and now somehow it’s too late to turn back. He pushes with both hands against Zayn’s chest till he is sat against the couch, while Louis moves frantically to straddle him. They both groans when their hard cocks brush against one another, the heady sensation of skin against skin that has them breathing heavily against each other’s neck. Louis leans back to grab the lube tube abandoned on the coffee table behind him -he and Jake always forget it there- and places it into Zayn’s shaking hands .  
  
He slicks up two fingers, rubbing the liquid substance to warm it up, and gently trails them along the cleft of Louis' arse, brushing the soft pink skin of the hole. He cautiously pushes them inside Louis till the last knuckles, crooking them and repeatedly rubbing against Louis’ prostate in a restless and unforgiving path.

“You will regret this in the morning,” Louis breathes out, tucking his head in Zayn’s collarbone, sucking the sweaty skin absent-mindedly. He inhales his pervading perfume, and closes his eyes at the sensation of a third finger entering him without permission.

“I know.”

And it feels like words don’t deserve to be spoken right now, too many and never enough to explain why these two boys are doing this, at the death of a too tiring day like nothing else is really worth happening.  
  
  
Zayn is slicking up his cock and lining it against Louis’ hole, waiting for him to make the final and ultimate move. It feels something like terminal, decisive of everything that might have happened before. And Louis simply sinks onto him with a whimper and lets his body swallow Zayn’s cock inside himself and relishes the burning stretching sensation, that fills him in the most beautiful and painful way.  
  
Neither of them hear the door cracking open, but when Louis rises his head from the crook of Zayn’s neck to lick inside his mouth, he sees Harry standing there, frozen in the door frame with an hand clasped over his mouth, the other clenching around his flat key.

Damn Zayn and his fucking ideas.

Louis would like to keep bouncing on Zayn’s cock, showing Harry that two can play this game, showing him how good he can take a cock and make another man moan his name while he comes inside him, but he’s a better person than this, and he knows that, so he places both hands on Zayn’s sweaty chest and stops him. When Zayn pulls a confused face and takes in Louis’ expression, he turns his head and freezes when he sees Harry’s standing there, watering eyes and hand still over his mouth.

“Fuck.”

He gently pushes Louis off him and lays him on the couch, and with a quick movement he tugs his cock back inside his brief and his fly up.

“What. The hell. Are you. Doing?” Harry shouts, his voice cracks on the last word.

   
“I--I,” and Zayn can’t continue because there is fucking nothing to say.

“What the fuck are you doing Zayn? Liam has called me at least twenty times, worried because you bloody run away.” He lets his eyes drop to Louis who is still half-naked on the couch, “to apparently come here and fuck him I might guess,” he adds with an hint of disgust.

Louis feels the need to intervene, to ease off the guilt spreading under his skin so slowly adn yet so intensely, so he pipes in “it’s my fault Harry. I took advantage of him when I knew he was in a unstable state. I’m sorry”. He runs a hand through his messy hair, breath stuck in his throat, and wonders why Harry keeps staring at him instead of Zayn.  
  
“I gotta go,” Zayn mutters while he picks up his tee before running past Harry and storming out the front door.  
  
Louis stands up from the couch and recollects his sweatpants, which rest precariously on the back of the blue armchair. He can’t find his socks but he thinks he wasn’t actually wearing them. He rises his eyes and finds Harry still there, angry eyes and hands held in first clenching and unclenchinga along his sides.

“How long has it been going on?"

"This is the first time Harry, and it's not any of your fucking business."

  
Louis thinks Harry eyes are holding more anger than they could, and he wonders if the tears streaming down his face it's just a way to let it slip away.

“Don’t you dare looking at me like that Harry. You fucking hypocrite.”

"It’s not the same thing Louis. How could you do this to Liam. How could you-”

“How could you do that to me Harry. You fucked someone else in our kitchen because you didn’t have the balls to look in the eyes of a person that had loved you unconditionally for two years and tell him it was over and that you were in love with someone else and now you dare pointing a finger at me because I’ve been stupid enough to let my best friend fuck me in a moment of weakness? No, don’t you dare Harold. Now get out of my flat.” He turns around, but stops on the door way when Harry breaks the silence with a firm no, that has him turning back around and looking at him bewildered.

“No what?”

“No I’m not leaving. Because you said you wanted to fucking marry me and I’m sick of always running away from you.”

He takes a step toward Louis, releasing briefly his fists. Louis holds his breath and even in this moment Harry looks so damn beautiful, when tears pool in his eyes and indiluted anger finds permanent home in them.

“I’m sick of watching him touching you without feeling the right to stop him.”

 Another step. And Louis thinks Harry’s perfume is addictive. It sticks to his skin and slips into the spaces between them even though nobody has ever allowed it to.

“I’m sick of his stupid hands on your waist and his dumb lips near your mouth.”

He rises his hands to takes Louis’, takes another step, and a thunder rolls in the distance.

  
“I’m sick of not hearing your voice in the morning when I wake up, or late at night when you can’t sleep.”

  
They are staring at each other with intent, none of them willing to give something more away. Louis thinks that with what he knows about Harry he write hundreds of thousands of words, fragments, memories blended together to create this huge, gangly boy who can barely keep his balance of his feet, that now stands in front of him with red eyes which seem ready to shatter on the ground and fade away.

“I’ve missed you so much Louis. Please Lou. Please.”

Louis remains silent. He doesn’t even know what Harry is pleading him for. He watches the spaces between their fingers. They are too far away, too distant, and yet still too suffocating. They are like maelstroms ready to swallow him back inside his black hole, and he‘s too broken to allow it again.

So he releases his hands from Harry‘s grip and let them fall down his side.

“It’s too late Harry.”

He walks backwards, and slowly disappears around the corner, inside his bedroom, that still smells of cheap beer and stale smoke and Jake’s cologne.

 

 -

 

The sky gets too dark outside, and the starlight brushes his skin like it's trying to make the pain ebb away, even though he knows it's etched there and won't go away. 

The ceiling crumbles above him, but the rubbles don’t hurt so much when they bury him under the weight of old memories. 

Old. But never enough to forget them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think :)
> 
> i promise the next one will be far better :)
> 
>  
> 
> \- [tumblr](http://the-scent-of-your-memory.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my favorite i think. i hope no one is angry with me HA
> 
> i didn't really edited it. maybe i'll do it tomorrow :) let me know :)

You will look for him again, useless to deny it. And in the midst of people you will have the anxiety to meet him, like the first time you saw him. 

  
And the last time you lost him.

  
  
-

 

  
  
Louis thinks that the sun kisses Jake’s skin in a peculiar secretive way. His hair is shining under its gentle light, and waves with the calm warm breeze blowing from East. They are on his balcony, smoking a joint and feeling thre pressure of never spoken words easing off their chest and floating away with the wind. The sun shines, and the sky seems distract above them.

  
He wonders how much it will take for Jake to leave him too. Because he always feels like he has nothing to give him and yet Jake’s always there beside him. Louis wakes up in morning with the scent of omelettes permeating the humid air and Jake’s voice filling the flat, humming softly dumb songs playing on the radio, and Louis knows he doesn’t deserve the warmth that pools in his chest when his voice cracks or gets too low. He likes to linger in the doorway and stare at him, basking in the way the muscles of his back stretch when he gets to his tippy toes to reach a bowl in the top drawer.  
  
  
They fall into these kind of routines, where none of them knows when they started, but they unfold through them anyway. So he  pads to him and wraps his arms around his waist. And Jake has this way of kissing him in the morning, where his lips brush against Louis’ like a glide of paint on a too delicate canvas, and Louis wonders if the taste of raspberry his mouth treasures is just a trick of his imagination. 

It starts to rain.

And the light gets washed away.

 

  
  
  
-

 

  
  
It’s a Sunday morning when Jake tells him he loves him. Louis has him on his hand and knees on the mattress, while he thrusts inside him with a pounding rhythm. His chest is pressed against his back, his hand curled around Jake’s leaking cock, and the sunlight streams inside the room with reverent caution.

  
Louis thinks it escaped from Jake’s swollen lips absent-mindedly, just something that slipped in the heat of the moment, something that shouldn’t have made Louis moan and come the moment it’s whispered. But Jake says those words like he means them, and Louis thinks he probably truly does.

  
And Louis thinks that he himself could say those words meaning them.

 

  
And so he does.

  
  
  
  
                                                                                                                    ~*~*~*~

 

 

  
  
  
Her hands are too slim and too smooth. There’s something so wrong about them, Louis thinks.  
  
  
In the way she moves them when she talks. In the way they never squeeze hard to get his attention when he’s slowly zoning out and falling back in the dark. The way her skin feels like silk against his, dainty when they touch. The way her fingers are always gentle, soft like a caress and never rough and demanding as he’d like them to.

Eleanor is walking briskly beside him, her head hanging low, while he covers her eyes with one of her slender hands. The quick flashes ring behind Louis’s eyelids, and his head hurts. He just wants this night to finish as soon as possible and go back home, gulp down a whole bottle of red and then pass out under the covers of his too large bed.  
  
There is a smile creasing her feature, and Louis relinquishes briefly the warmth that pools in his stomach before she graciously climbs into the car that was waiting for her around the corner and with a quick peck on his cheek, she closes the door and disappears in the cold night.

Her lips always kiss in the wrong way. They are a ghost that doesn’t frighten but just reassure. They don’t leave bruises or scars. They kiss with caution and gentleness, a faint brush of lips against lips, nothing more, nothing less. He wonders how it would be like to fuck her and actually enjoying it, if it would feel nice, or if his name fits in the right way on her lips when she comes.  
  
  
Louis wants a kiss that sucks his tongue and bites his lower lip, than claims and leaves him breathless. A kiss that has arched Cupid’s bow and vermilion lips. A kiss that no longer belongs to him, but once did.

And so when he gets home, he opens the kitchen cabinet and lets the liquor numb his pain and slowly, slowly, he starts to forget again.  
  
Just for tonight.

  
  
*

  
Louis hasn’t talked to Harry since that night.  
  
The phantom of Zayn’s hands clutching at his waist still burns in his memory. He wants to forget how it has felt to have him inside himself, how it has felt to drag his finger along his cheek covered in stubble and kiss the fear away.  
  
  
Zayn has told him he doesn’t regret it.  
  
  
Louis thinks he doesn’t, either.

  
  
                                                                                                                  ~*~*~*~

  
  
  
  
  
The tour is finally beginning, and despite this means wearing-out gigs, never-ending interviews and always occupied days, at least he has something to do to busy his days and, if he has to consider all the positive sides, he doesn’t have to see her.  
  
  
It’s not like he hates her. Far from that. Eleanor has become a close friend through all these years, one of the few people he can actually talk to without always feeling judged and in need to build up guards. But she somehow embodies everything Louis can’t have but the world expects him to. And her eyes are not green and her skin is too tanned and her hair too long and she wouldn’t be enough anyway.  
  
Louis and the lads are bouncing frantically on their feet, waiting for the signal that they can enter the stage and let this damn tour begin for real. Zayn comes beside him and plants a smacking kiss on his cheek, and warmly murmurs inside his ear “let’s be mean tonight Tommo.”  
  
And Louis feels him grinning against his neck, and with a wicked smile he turns around and tells him “I don’t need to be told twice.”  
  
For what Louis knows, Zayn told Liam what had happened that same night. But from the way Liam is actually acting around him makes Louis believe Zayn probably really didn’t. Or, as he fears, he has himself something to be forgiven too. And surely Louis isn’t going to interfere in such delicate dynamics, and since things remained quite as before, he can’t really complain. Liam is always playful with him, messing around at every occasion they have and causing troubles just out of boredom. He hopes they can work this out and get over this shit.  
  
  
Because at least they deserve to be happy.

  
Niall as usual is in own island, grinning from ear to ear for no apparent reason, like nothing can really touch him. Niall is ethereal, someone who should be kept inside a theca and treasured in a museum, because in spite of the fact that Zayn is Louis’ man, Niall belongs to the world.  
  
Harry has been strange in these passed three weeks. Silent and almost always pensive, a little on his own. He never checks his phone, which is quite odd, considering he has a boyfriend and tons of people who regularly keep contact with him. He is getting less talkative and a little more snapping than usual.

  
But Louis’ stomach his hurting terribly since this morning and he hasn’t eaten in two days, and can’t really allow his mind to dwell on these kind of things, so he wills it to go somewhere else safer.  
  
The signal finally comes, and with few screeching screams -that they should be feeling ashamed for in other context- they run past the doors and enter the stage. Louis remains briefly behind, takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, willing his hands to stop trembling. When he opens them back open, Harry is still where he was before. His head is low, almost against his chest, and his cheeks are crimson red as if he has been crying.  
  
Louis’d like to go there and embrace him tight, kiss his forehead like he used to do as nothing really ever happened. But he knows he can’t and maybe even really doesn’t want to. So he just approaches him and with a hand on his shoulder, he walks past him, back to their world of too loud screams, and never high enough music.  
  
They go through the first songs without many incidents, Niall is jumping on the stage like he’s high on coke and something else, when he’s just high on life and happiness, and it actually makes Louis’ heart warm for few seconds, feeling it beat for the first time in what feels like forever.

Niall smiles at him from the other side of the stage, brightly and genuine, strumming his guitar strapped over his almost bare chest, and Louis thinks that if he has to find another thing worth breathing for, Niall’s smile would be a perfect candidate.  
  
When the first note of “Over again” come floating inside his ears, Louis feels his heart twist inside his ribcage.  
  
He remembers the day he and Harry sat the whole afternoon on their balcony to write some random lyrics, of songs that now they are not even allowed to sing live, high on pot and so much love he should feel embarrassed for. But loving Harry was the only thing he has always been good at, wholly, completely, all-encompassing. The only thing he really truly knew, the only thing worth it all. The only thing that really mattered.  
  
  
And the song starts, and when Harry’s voice cracks when he sings _if I can make all this pain go_ Louis suddenly feels like he can’t do this. But he has to, so when his part comes, he sings, sings because that’s what he’s supposed to be doing. Sings with passion, because this is what he loves doing, and closes his eyes, because this is too much.  
  
  
He doesn’t know why he does it, why he feels like some sort of urge pushes him to look left instead of right and smile at Niall. But he looks left, and there is Harry, looking straight inside his soul as the chorus starts.  
  
 _if you pretending from the stars, like this with a tight grip_  
  
That’s what he has been doing for three fucking years. Pretending pretending and always pretending. Pretending that his heart doesn’t beat for this guy in front of him, with too lanky limbs and dumb hair. Who walks on the stage like he was born to own it but who can’t even walk straight out of it.  
  
 _then my kiss can mend your broken heart I might miss everything you said to me_

  
Louis misses those lips. He craves them, he needs them. How soft they feel brushed against his kneecap, how teasing they were high on his thighs and mind-blowing good around his cock. How they mold against the mic, how beautifully they form words when he talks. How sinfully Louis’ name dripped from them, lasciviously when he moaned it, privately against his neck when he came. He misses his voice, husky and low, frayed and chipped in the morning, silken when it was too dark outside. And maybe what Louis misses the most are the words that Harry said with that voice. The promises, their dreams and hopes. The _I love yous_ and _never gonna let you gos_ that sit meakly inisde his chest, that make him feel full but empty at the same time. Because now those words are hollow, and burn behind his eyelids like a blinding light.  
  
 _and i can lend your broken parts that might fit like this and I’ll give you all my heart_  
  
Louis holds his breath. This is too much. Too much and sensing what it’s coming, he just surrenders.

 

_so we can start it all over again_

   
And Louis then starts to cry and he doesn’t even know why. He just knows it feels like he hasn’t cried since the day Harry left without a goodbye and every tear streaming down his face feels like a day without Harry is slowly drifting away with it, and somehow coming brighter back to him.  
  
  
He places both hands over his tired eyes and everything turns out focus. The sound gets low, and his mind goes blank.  
  
  
  
Back into oblivion.

 

Back to smoldering green eyes and limestone skin.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
                                                                                              ~*~*~*~  
  
  
  
  
Paris is glorious. Louis has always loved it, for its monumentality of his architecture and the warmth of the people who live there. The only problem is that he doesn’t know a single word of French apart from “voulez-vous couchez avec moi” and “va chier” but he’s sure he can’t really survive here with only these two lines. Which are quite useful, if you ask him, but again.  
  
  
Eleanor is laughing on the passenger side, singing off-tune a Hunter Hayes’ song playing softly on the radio, while Louis keeps smirking at her, drumming his fingers against the wheel in tune with the song. He feels serene today, with Eleanor sat beside him. The sunlight streams down her gentle face, brushing against her delicate cheekbones and petit nose.  
  
He thinks she is so damn beautiful. If he was a different kind of person he would love her with all his heart, wholly and completely. But there is another name etched on his heart, that pulses with every fibre and throbs with every drop of blood that streams through his valves, and he isn’t able to be that person for her.  
  
  
They would totally look like a real couple like this, he thinks, smiling broadly at each other with laced fingers over the dashboard. He’s thrilling for tonight, another gig another city but the same crazy lads by his side. He can’t help revisiting again and again what happened in London, asking himself if those words keep ringing inside Harry’s head as much as they do in Louis’.

  
A permission maybe. A wish. Louis hopes a promise, and in the most lonely nights he allows himself to think that maybe there’s still something to fix.

  
  
He hasn’t felt again at the edge of something so unbelievable painful when he has sung those words that same evening and the days after. Maybe it wasn’t the words in themselves, but the way Harry’s skin glowed under the harsh lights and the words Louis found in the sliver of green around his dilated pupils. It has felt like a maze of things that were stacked in a too small place, between too far bodies, and the air inside his lungs was never enough, no matter how hard he tried to breathe.  
  
  
It has been hard to look at each other since then. Because every glance, every feeble words whispered when anybody else is around, feels so charged and always holding more it is intented to.  
  
  
He pulls inside a parking lot, ready to go visiting le musée d’ Orsay and hopefully spend a calm afternoon around le quartier latin later without further complications. He takes her hand and gently helps her out of the car. The city is quite despite the late morning hour and the fact that hordes of fans are probably manically looking around for them in the desperate attempt to catch a glimpse of Eleonour having a romantic date in Paris.  
  
  
Liam and Zayn today are finally taking some time for themselves, enjoying the few spare moments they have between a gig and another. Since the debacle with Louis, Zayn has been more careful around him, afraid to bother Liam with their closeness , but Louis suspects that Liam doesn’t really mind.

 

   
They are currently walking past Place de la Concorde and entering les Jardins du Palais Royal. Louis doesn’t know why he feels the urge to tell her this, but he can’t wait, not anymore, and so when they reach la Pyramide Inversée he blurts out “I think it’s over El,” conscious of the fact that it doesn’t even make sense but the doesn’t know how to tell her otherwise.  
  
  
And he was expecting something, like an awkward silence or a fight or something, but not the huge smile that Eleanor gives him and Louis fears for few seconds that she didn’t catch exactly what he meant but then she leans in and kisses his cheeks and murmurs “fucking finally,” and all the doubts fade away.  
  
  
  
He doesn’t tell the lads and the people from their staff. For once he wants to savor the marvelous taste of freedom inside his dry mouth and let it unfurl in his chest like there it was always meant to reside.

  
  
-

 

  
He ends things with Jake two days after.

 

He wasn’t expecting it to be so painful, to hurt so much. But it does.

  
And it has nothing to do with the way tears run down Jake’s cheeks and pool at the corners of his mouth. Neither with the way his hand tightens his grip on Louis’ when he tells him he still loves him. Because it’s true. He does, in a peculiar way perhaps, but Louis thinks that maybe he does love him in the right way. Maybe he does love him enough, but the way he has loved Harry will always be too much, too strong, too everything and whatever kind of things you compare it with wil always be never enough.  
  
  
And Louis doesn’t want Jake to be compared to anything that has come before him, doesn’t want him to compete with something that will always stay there. Unreachable, untouchable. Incomparable. It’s not fair, because he gives Louis everything he needs, everything he wants and maybe even more. But…

But it’s not enough.

  
  
*

 

  
  
Eleanor and him finally decide to tell their staffs and management about their decision. None of them was happy or thrilled at the idea of the surely consequent rumors coming out from this news. But Louis can’t really give a fuck about this, because this is his moment, where he finally had the balls to end a damn lie that has gone on for almost two years now.  
  
He doesn’t know what will come out of this either. But he doesn’t care about rumors, about people talking and assuming. He wonders if this beard shit is definitely over, if with Eleanor out of the picture he can at least stay serene by himself without further bullshits on the way.  
  
  
Eleanor’s eyes are so beautiful under the feeble light streaming from the little window above them. She looks more relaxed, and her smile makes Louis’ stomach go all in knots. They entwine their fingers, and the pressure of her fingertips against his skin says that maybe Louis can still be fixed.

  
  
They are due to fly to America in three days. He’s enjoy this little time off to sort out his mind and make some order in the mess swirling perpetually inside of it.

 

  
He takes a deep breath. He feels light.

  
                                                                                ~*~*~*~

  
  
  
  
  
He calls Greg and they stay on the phone for two hours and half till his phone dies and he can’t find the strength to stand up and take the charger. Oh well, the world can wait.  
  
  
He’s sprawled naked on the floor of his room, hair still damp from the shower and quickly worriedly wonders if his ass will turn to his natural wonderful round shape since now is flat as the floor underneath it. He’s smoking his third cigarette of the afternoon, letting the ashes fall around him like the floor became a gigantic ashtray. It just briefly makes him feel hardcore enough to curse a bird that keeps singing outside the window, flipping it off and then feeling a sense of self-realization washing over him in a surely unhealthy way.  
  
  
Jake called this morning. He just wanted to tell him that he had brought Louis’ stuff back to his flat and that he wishes him good luck for the show. His voice was calm, steady, but Louis could hear the resentment and sadness behind every word he said. Louis thinks he probably still loves him, that even if he's not his anymore, a little part inside his chest will always belong to him, no matter what.  
  
Louis startles when someone knocks at the door and he tries to remember if he has by any chance called for room service but momentarily is mind his blank so he just stands up from his cold hood and goes to open it.  
  
  
He forgets he is still naked and that the lying position induced a semi in his lower region but he is conscious of it the moment he opens the door and Harry is in front of him with both hand over his eyes.  
  
  
“Shit sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything. I’ll go,” he mumbles, before Louis catches his arm and stops him.  
  
  
“You aren’t interrupting anything. I was just casually naked on the floor thinking about life and death and no, I wasn’t having a wank.”  
  
  
“Oh. Okay. Can -- can I come in?”  
  
Louis lets him in and with a shuddering breath, he closes the door and runs in his room to get some new clothes. He decides for some gray sweatpants and a worn tank top, and while he changes into fresh briefs, he wonders why the hell Harry is doing here.  
  
  
When he comes back inside the little sort of living room, Harry is pouring some tea in two huge mugs with his head hanging low and his curls covering his eyes. Louis coughs to get his attention, but Harry doesn’t move.  
  
“There is ash all over the floor.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
Louis looks in those eyes he’s fallen in love so many years ago and feels it. He feels the pull, the want. The need to fall apart into Harry’s arms, to dissolve in the embrace and let him piece him back together. To feel again Harry’s name graces the tip of his tongue without feeling the steel taste of blood with it.  
  
  
“It’s not like I don’t enjoy your company Harold, but… no, no, okay, I really don’t lately, but is there a reason why you are here at”, he eyes the red clock hanging lopsidedly above the bed, “half past eleven?”  
  
  
“He must be very special, doesn’t he?

  
“He mmh- what?”

“Jake.”  
  
Louis looks at him confused with brows furrowed and mouth gaping impossibly wide. He’s trying to process what has just come out of Harry’s mouth but nothing comes to mind.  
  
“You know, I’ve always tried to believe you when you used to tell me there really weren’t other options. But I guess you just needed to find something worth it. And-,” he laughs humorlessly, carding nervously a hand through his messed curls, “yeah it fucking hurts but I’m happy you found a person important enough for you to finally make that decision.”  
  
Louis is looking at him like he has lost his damn mind, and his mouth is hanging open almost comically. “What. The fuck. Are you talking about?”  
  
“You didn’t even tell us Lou. Me, of all people. I thought that despite what has happened between us I would always have been the person you would have come to when you would have been ready to break up with her and face all the shit coming from it. I just hope Jake is really worth--”  
  
“Harry. I broke up”, he makes the quotes gesture, assuming a very annoyed tone, “with Jake three weeks ago.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Harry stares at him confused, looking around as if the answer to his questions are written on the pale blue walls. “I- I don’t understand then.”  
  
“I did it for myself Harry,” he says deathly calm, munching his lower lips when he pauses. “I didn’t make that step for anybody else but me. Because it wasn’t her the reason why I could take your hand in public and kiss you in front of the world as I dream to. We fucking are under a goddamn contract Harry, which is due to end in a year and we had always discussed how when its time had elapsed we would have been finally free to at least have another choice.”  
  
“I know but-”  
  
“But you decided you couldn’t wait and you fucked everything up because you didn’t trust me and my love for you and for what Harry? For Eleanor? I’m not even like you, I loathes tits till the core and you fucking knew it but it didn’t really matter because you are Harry fucking Styles, the star everywhere he fucking goes and you couldn’t stand not to be for those five afternoons every month when I was off with her, isn’t it Harry?”

  
“No I-”

  
“No fuck you, you made you damn choice the day you let Nicholas fuck you, and now get the fuck out of my room. I’m tired and I’m sober so sorry but I won’t talk to you any further.”

  
He’s breathless when he finishes, but at least he has been finally able to let everything everything that still lingered in his head be voiced and feels able to breathe without the sensation of always be missing something else. He turns around and makes two steps towards the bathroom before a hand grabs his arm and stops him.

  
“I would have said yes.”

  
“What?”

  
Harry closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are darker, clouded with arousal and something else Louis is not sure he wants to see in them. His lips are parted, framing a forlorn smile, hiding in the crooks of his mouth. Louis thinks Harry’s lips have been sculpted from the finest kind of marble, with all its pearl rosy swirls and veins, smoothed and polished like it was meant to be loved.  
  
“If you had asked me to marry you, I would have said yes.” He takes a final step, crowding him against the wall. He leans down, brushing his lips against Louis‘, and with his husky and low voice he murmurs “if you asked me now, I would say yes” before claiming Louis’ mouth with his own, lifting him up against the wall and pinning him with his hips. Louis winds his hands through his unruly mops of ebony curls and moans against his lips when he feels Harry’s erection pressing against his own.

  
“I fucking want you inside me. Now.” Harry’s response consists in groaning loudly inside Louis’ ear and leading them towards his bed. When he reaches it, he gently lays him down and tugs Louis’ sweatpants and briefs off in a swift motion. He spreads Louis' legs wide open and kneels between them, skimming Louis’ thick thighs from his knees to his waist, stopping at his bum and squeezing possessively at it.

“Ask me now.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Ask me now Lou,” he says through gritted teeth, his tone rougher.  
  
“No Harry. It’s too late.”  
  
“No,” he shouts, rising up from Louis’ chest, and stares down at him with wide eyes. He looks scared and his breaths are coming out ragged and broken. “It’s not too late. It’s never too late. We are not over.” He leans down and crashes their mouths back together while he sneaks his hand between their bodies and tugs down his fly. Harry’s hands are firm on his ass and his thighs, guiding his legs around his waist as their mouths push together insistently. Harry’s tongue flits over the seam of Louis’ lip, requesting entrance that Louis grants him a moment later to deepen the kiss, and when they are both breathless, he breathes “we are not over” one more time, like he’s trying to convince himself, rather than someone else.

  
And now Louis doesn’t want him to keep talking. He wants Harry inside him and pushing hard because he needs to feel something. Anything. So he moves his hand to palm his erection through the black fabric of his briefs, slowly dragging down the waistband with the other hand till only the tip comes out. He thumbs the slit and spread the leaked precome around the head, while he keeps dragging down the briefs till it’s completely free. He wraps his fingers around Harry’s hard cock and strokes him even if the angle is painful and he really doesn’t want to wait any longer.  
Harry pushes him against the mattress and swiftly stands up, removing with a languid movement both his jeans and briefs, which land carelessly on the ground as all Louis' restrains. He takes his cock in his hand, squeezing firmly the base and then proceeding to stroke himself while he keeps his eyes trained on Louis, basking in the sweet curves of Louis’ body, the thickness of his thighs and the smoothness of the sliver of exposed belly .

  
Harry lets out a loud moan when Louis tugs off his tee, and Louis’ sure he could have come in that precise moment  just seeing how the hold on Harry's cock faltered as Louis pushed a finger inside himself dry. He blindly reaches for the top drawer of his nightstand and grabs his lube tube, his eyes never leaving the spot where the head of Harry’s cock keeps disappearing inside his fist.  
  
Harry crawls back over him, swatting away Louis' finger still teasing his hole, letting then Louis pull off the black tank top while he grabs the lube carelessly abandoned on the bed.  
  
It’s not something Louis let him do so often, but right now he doesn’t have the strength to take control and he just needs to let go. To let Harry take him completely apart, to come undone under the push of his waist and the throb of his cock inside himself. He needs to feel him his, just one last time.  
  
Harry opens it and slick up two fingers, teasingly trailing them along the cleft of his arse, brushing and circling Louis’ pink hole. He slowly pushes them inside and Louis gasps, the burning feeling warms him up but he needs more, even if he knows it will hurt.  
  
“Fuck, you are so tight Lou. Always so bloody tight." Harry brushes his fingers against his prostate, crooking his fingers to reach it with each push and stroke. He then adds another, scissoring Louis wide open while he litters open-mouthed kisses all over his sweaty chest.

  
“Did you let him fuck you?”

“No.”

  
Harry moans, pulling off his fingers and slicking up his cock with the moisture on them. They lock eyes, burning with lust and want, an hint of insecurity hiding inside Harry’s blown out pupils, and when Louis lifts his head to kiss him, Harry sinks into him. He grips Louis’ hips, pressing his fingertips hard into his flesh, urging them to push harder to meet his thrusts. Louis feels elated, panting beneath him, crushed against the suffocating weight of Harry sturdy body, who slams mercilessly inside him, trailing kisses and bites across his jaw and down his neck, mapping out that skin that now he feels like he has to mark it all over again to feel it his again.  
  
And Louis lets him, because that’s how they work, that’s how they cope with everything, when words surrender and they let their hands speak for them.  
  
Harry is coming undone above him, his thrusts starting to falter in their previous rhythmical and steady path in and out of Louis, pushing and dragging out in an unforgiving motion. He wraps his hand around Louis’ leaking cock, resting painfully hard and untouched on his belly, and strokes him twice, three times before he comes between their bodies, and when he tucks his head in the crook of Harry’s neck and whispers “I love you”, Harry comes too, hard and fast inside him. He collapses boneless on Louis’ sated body, inhaling deeply the scent of sweat and sex rising from his skin.  
  
“Say it again.”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
“Again.”  
  
“I love you.”  
  
“Again.”  
  
"I fucking love you Harry.”  
  
Harry groans and pushes again inside him, clutching at Louis’ hips with that painful and reassuring pressure, hard but never enough to feel real. And Louis feels his collarbone getting damp, with sweat and hushed tears, a sob escapes Harry’s kissed lips, and the world spirals down around him. Harry rests his head in the curve of Louis’ neck, chest flushed against Louis’, panting inside his ear. “Why did you let us get to that point? Why did you allow this?” he asks, his voice hoarse and broken, while he keeps slowly thrusting inside Louis’ clenching hole, damp and leaking Harry’s orgasm.  
  
“You did this Harry. You cheated on me and— and broke my heart and walked—out of that damn door and never come back. I—fuck, I didn’t do anything,” he breathes out, closing his eyes at the pure and amazing sensation of Harry’s cock abusing his hole, already sore and wet.  
  
His movements get slower and slower, losing rhythm and intention with each thrust. He briefly stops to breathes out “no you walked out that fucking door Lou. And yeah, you are right. You did nothing. You entered that—fucking room, with you face blank and you—nng.” He groans inside Louis’ ear, biting his earlobe trying to stifling it, when he feels Louis clench around him  
  
“What was I supposed to do Harry?”, and Harry's movements start again, “to scream at you that you were a fucking cheating whore and throw -- shit, dishes at you like you did? To punch Nick in the face and -- kick your ass out of the flat? What would have chan--.” The last words come out as a loud whimper when Harry hits his prostate with a deep slam, slipping from his lips like a secret what shouldn’t have been said.  
  
“I didn’t know--ah ah, fuck-- that else to do to get your attention, Lou.” He moves inside him unrhythmically and with inconstancy. “It was always like you nngh-- weren’t really there, always tired, always worried about everything else but me. And you didn’t even acknowledge that I--I was slowly drifting away. And when I saw your face when you saw us--”. He closes his eyes, and tears fall down, pooling in the indents of Louis’ collarbone, “I felt like I was dying, there, in front of you. Because you just didn’t care Louis. And it was killing me.”  
  
  
And now Louis stops him, pushing him slightly away from his chest, resting on his elbows, while he takes Harry’s chin and rises it up to look at him while he says “I didn’t care? What the fuck are you saying? I saw my boyfriend bent over by another man in our flat and the worst part of it all isn't even that you betrayed me, my unconditional trust in you. It was that from all the people you could have fucked, you chose him. Him Harry, the one person I’ve been jealous of from day one, and you chose him. And I felt like you had fucked me over for two years and that I shoudl have never trusted you.”  
  
  
Louis thinks he sees fears in Harry’s iris, pooled in their pale colour, and pain in the freckles on his nose. He wants to kiss them like he had a purpose, and Louis thinks that maybe he does.  
  
“You--", his breath hitches in his throat, and his voice gets too low, "you fucked someone else apart from Jake?”  
  
“Yes Harry. I fucked I don’t even know how many guys in bathroom stalls of bars I even ignores the names of or how I got there.”  
  
Harry’s fingertips trail down his side, leaving behind a path that he used to travel with his mouth when sleep didn't came, and grip the soft flesh of his hip. “It was before Jake though,” and it feels important and probrably it is.  
  
Harry is quite after that. His long fingers linger along Louis’ chest and trace those words, tattooed over his heart, heaving up and down with each breath, pounding with each beat inside his ribcage.  
  
“I went to talk to Zayn two nights ago. He told me about the time he found you on your rooftop,” and Louis remembers. He remembers that night with uncanny clarity even though he was so drunk it almost hurt. His legs felt like they were going to buckle and let him fall. And maybe it was what he wanted. But instead, he collapsed on the edge, and there was where Zayn found him two hours later.  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“ Why did you do that?”  
  
“Because--.” He thinks he sees cracks in Harry’s heart, and he wants to fix it, to mend it like once he used to. But he doesn’t know how, because there is a strength he can’t really muster to reach it and feel it throb under his fingertips. “Because the only moment when I couldn’t think about you, was when I blacked out. In the confusion of intoxication, I could pretend you were still there. That you still loved me.”  
  
Harry stares down at him, looking for any kind of response but finding none. “Did you really think I stopped loving you like that?”  
  
Louis doesn’t answer. It’s tired of talking and he’s sick of feeling like an idiot because all this shit could have been avoided if for once for fuck’s sake they had talked. So he spins Harry over, who now lies on his back, and with dark eyes he slowly moves away from him, slowly, tentatively, just to lower his head and take his half-hard cock in the warmth of his mouth.  
  
They don’t talk for a couple of hours after that. But Louis feels like they say far much more than any word could.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. here we are. i feel like there's something missing and i don't really know how i feel about this fic ending because it feels wrong. really wrong. i wrote and re-wrote this so many times i don't even want to dwell on because i might cry and i still don't feel right about it. but i guess it's because i don't want this story to end and so maybe it will never be good enough for me. so yeah. thanks to Deb who practically slapped me square in the face for days to go on with and call it a day and just post this.
> 
> i will propably go through the whole thing and changes some things because THIS is me and i can't help it. i'm sorry. Come to say hi if you want. Here's [ my tumblr](http://poopydoopylou.tumblr.com//)

 

The rain is dripping down the car windows, long vicious droplets leave mark on the thick glass, washing away the sand dust sedimented over them.

Australia has always been their place. A big fat reece without all the illegal sides that normally come along when they randomly decides to let mischief have the best of them and make up a grand plan to make their staff go nuts.

Australia feels different, somewhere where they can pretend the air they breathe will fill their lungs and make them feel free and weightless, even though every time they hang around here the security staff is always at their heels to check on every thing they bloody do.

And that’s why yesterday night Louis and Liam, sprawled on the couch of the tour bus while munching some crisps, decided to run away to a new beach today, just them and two surfboards carefully latched on the car roof. They switched off their phones and left them on their unmade bunks when they’d slipped silently out of them, conscious of the fact that not telling the others about this was surely going to turn out into a big mess but they couldn’t really bring themselves to care less.

They sneaked out before dawn and rented a shitty car just outside the city. Louis is sure the lad there recognised them, but the fifty bucks he slipped on his desk effectively made the trick to shut him up. They bought some sandwiches on the road to at least prevent from starving, considering they are planning on going to an almost desert beach and to stay there till sunset, with a packet of Marlboro red, those disgusting cheese-flavoured crisps Liam loves so much and other garbage food.

This time there is no Zayn by his side to hold him together. There’s no Niall smiling brightly beside him and making everything feel better and brighter. There’s just Liam, craziness embodied in broad shoulders and ridiculous puppy face and now finally growing back up hair. Liam, who has become Louis’ man over the years, slowly taking somehow Zayn’s place as Bane of his life.

Louis thinks Zayn’s place now resides far deeper under his skin. He beats with his heart inside his chest, and pumps blood in his veins. He thinks Zayn resides in his lungs, he expands with each breath, and holds tight when the world gets too loud.

Zayn keeps him alive, is his cure.

“Damn. Tommo we forgot to buy some beers.”

“Mh. I think it’s better that we did,” he laughs humorlessly, “your boyfriend put me in rehab for a bit.”

He hasn't drunk a single drop of alcohol in two months.

Louis thinks it's because he's getting addicted to another type of drug.

It's the feeling of lightness. That unfurls inside his ribcage, which makes him feel weightless, like all the pieces are getting pieced back together and he can look at himself in the mirror and see no cracks riddling his body.

It’s an emotion that settles heavily in his chest, and Louis thinks the buzz of the sticky weed scoped off of Niall they smoked yesterday is still waiting to dull. And maybe this isn’t even the weed. It’s the sun that tucks low in the sky, whose heat soaks his skin through and whose light stretches along his skin like stardust in the crepuscule sky. It’s the ocean that licks their calves and scents the air of salt, wet sand and memories Louis’ trying to grasp and keep them clutched to his heart.

They are pulling their swimsuits on, and smearing some sun cream on their noses to avoid some embarrassing sun burns because they really don't want to look like Santa's reindeers.

Too early for that anyway.

The quick pouring rain refreshed the air, wetting the sand that now feels almost heavenly under their bare feet. The sun shines low on the horizon, bright on the far left, caressing the watery surface with gentleness and reverence that only Nature can assure. The sky is clear, a soft breeze making shy clouds drifting away from the pale blue of the morning, trying to wipe away the tiredness pooled in Louis’ eyes, too.

 Louis lights up a fag, painting the air with an evanescent white that dissolves in the sun light.

"Zayn told me, you know.”

Louis eyes him from the right side, eyes half-closed and lips flattened to a thick line. He fumbles with his fingers, searching for words that will make the memory taste less bitter in his mouth, but none will ever be good enough to describe how deep a frown is creasing Liam's sun-kissed face, how there is something in the golden freckles scattered in those  gentle irides, finding refuge in the smoldering brown of his bright eyes.

“Yeah I know.”

He thinks he should say more. He should apologize, tell Liam that it was a mistake, that he is damn idiot but he loves him so fucking much. He doesn’t even want to be forgiven, because this is a pain he can bear, that is not as corrosive as he thinks it should be. It’s a pain the he can accept, that reminds him how fucked up this all is.

It’s a pain that stuck to his skin and scarred him deeper than he’s willing to believe.

They stay quite for seconds, minutes, zipping up the swimsuits and oiling the surfboards. It feels like the time slowed down, waiting for these two young men to dig deeper in their memory to make the chaos stocked there less painful.

“I haven’t shagged with anybody else but him for the last three years Lou. I didn’t put up a fight because I knew in which state you were, and why Zayn came to you. Yeah, I was pissed, unhealthily pissed. But I love you nonetheless, and I couldn’t afford to lose you, Lou." He sighs heavily, dropping briefly his head, to then rise it again, his serious eyes boring Louis'. "But I swear. If you fuck with me again, we are done.”

Louis’ eyes drop to the ground. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve a person like Liam in his life. A person who tiptoed into his life and made home in the spaces between Louis’ fingers and who’s able to see the deburrings in all the smiles of Louis that don’t reach his eyes.

 Liam rubs his hands together and smiles, and something warm coils in Louis' stomach. “Okay Tommo. Let’s have some fun now,” he says, standing up and offering his hand to lift Louis up.

 When they are both steady on their feet, Liam places both of his hands on Louis’ shoulders, grinning softly at him with crinkles creasing his eyes and sweat staining his cheeks. Liam squeezes the tensed muscles, then “I gave you another chance Lou. You should do the same,” with a knowing nod, before slapping playfully Louis’ cheek and running toward the shore.

He and Harry haven’t talked since New York. He woke up alone in his hotel bed, smelling like sex in the summer and memories of warmer winters, but he could still feel the ghost of Harry’s lips on his own when he had kissed him before silently slipping out the door and disappearing. They went through the whole American leg substantially as if nothing really happened that night.

 Louis needs time. Time to trust him again, as he once did. To make the love that still burns in his veins be worth whatever pain that came.

 Whatever pain that one day will.

Harry needs Louis. He can see it in his glistening eyes, in the way his mouth crooks, in the way his voice cracks when it’s too early to speak with a purpose. Louis thinks he needs him too. Desperately, back in his arms where the lights were never too harsh and the shadows never scaring enough to tear him apart.

 

But this time, they both learnt to wait.

 

 

                                                                                                 ~*~*~*~

 

 

 

 

“Oooh Tommo, my man. I missed you so so much. Lemme hug you mate.”

Greg hugs him tightly, lifting him up and spinning him around like the fucking Prince Charming that he is, before placing him back on the ground and kissing both his now flushed cheeks.

They haven’t talked that often during the last months of the tour, both kind of caught up in their own dramas and job, but now that they are finally back home, he wanted to see him first thing after having landed in London.

 Their interview is due to start in five minutes, so he made a quick run to greet him while the others are probably intruding other rooms and messing with poor radio hosts doing their job in them.

 Louis taught them well.

 “Heard everything turned okay,” Greg says with a grin, rubbing his hands together like he's planning something mischievous in his stupid dumb mind. Louis wants to kiss him so bloody much. And maybe slap him too.

 After he’s kissed him. Probably.

 “Heard from who? No, no wipe away that fucking smug face you bloody id--”

 He can’t finish the sentence as Greg throws him over his shoulder and drags him down the corridor like a damn caveman. He proceeds with _slapping_ Louis' bum with each step, the sharp sounds echo in the little hallway and make Louis laugh even though he's trying so hard to school his expression into one of disapproval.

“You bloody wanker, just because you are a damn giant doesn’t mean you can’t manhandle me like this.”

“Oooh, I think you like it.”

“Oooh I think I don’t.”

“Oooh I think you do.“

“I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“Ooo-”

“No no I’m really gonna throw up.”

Greg promptly places him back on his feet, and as the sense of nausea fades, Louis slaps him square in the head and laughs. He winds his arms around his neck and hugs him again, murmuring “I missed you, you bloody tosser” against his neck before releasing him. He gives him a little peck on the cheek and when he turns around he freezes dead on his place, because Nick and Harry are talking down the corridor, both staring at them with curious eyes. Then they turn their attention back to each other, Nick places his hands on Harry’s shoulders, slightly shaking him as to reassure him of something Louis isn’t sure he wants to know.

Harry nods at him, and enters the room. Nick stays there, hands on his hips, shaking his head, in resignation, Louis thinks. When he rises his eyes and sees Louis, frozen on that spot, he takes a tentative step towards him, slowly, as if fearing Louis might lash out and kill him.

He's not that stupid then.

“I’m sorry,” is what Nick tells him when he’s close enough for him to hear.

Maybe he _is_ thatstupid.

Because seriously. It’s not Nick he’s expecting apologies from. And he doesn’t want to be pitied by the guy who took from him the only thing that Louis thought he ever learnt how to properly love.

When Louis says nothing, just looks at him with a blank expression, Nick adds “I was trying to tear a reaction out your stupid and thick skull. And I fucking succeeded so maybe I’m not that sorry after all.” He smiles softly down at him, and immediately relaxes when Louis lets out a liberating but shuddering breath.

“He never stopped loving you, Louis. The only reason I succumbed to shag him was because for how he described the dynamics between you two I thought you didn’t really care about him anymore. But when I understood how bad you got it, how", he pauses, sighing heavily, "both of you got it, I put myself out of that shit".

And maybe this won't be enough. Maybe it won't make it easier to forget the pain, to forget how it is to feel like there is an hollow inside your chest, a person-shaped groove that once made you feel grounded, like you could breathe without feeling drained.

"How is that possible you couldn't figure it out by yourself?" he breathes out, closing his eyes as if the answer will be sweeter if the world falls into pitch blackness.

"He knew you like the back of his hand and yet he hadn't been able to understand you still cared about him. How could you expect me to?" and he's right, he's do damn right and Louis feels so damn stupid because it was him in first place who hasn't been able to understand that Harry was drifting. Away, away from him and their life and their home. He hasn't been able because he took Harry as something for granted, and what he thought was the most beautiful thing about his and Harry's relationship, was the exact thing that brought it all away from him.

"And our young Harold is not that shitty at acting like we thought," Nick adds after a bit, scrunching his mouth and biting his cheek.

There is something edgy about Nick's voice that calls to Louis on some very deep level. And he feels like he needs to says something, something important, that won't leave a void of silence in this hallway, too cold and small to deserve the emotions it's keeping.

"Thanks," it's what he decides to say, letting his voice cracks with levity pooling in his chest, as if he isn't feeling himself breaking with it.

"Oh you don't have to thank me. I did it because I love myself too much to get involved in teenagers dramas,” he states, placing a hand on his heart, while he rises his eyes to the ceiling and bats his eyelashes in fake innocence.

Louis can’t help but bark out a loud laugh and clutch his stomach with a hand. “I should kill you, but I pity you so go away before I change my mind.”

Nick looks at him with a dumb expression of faux gratitude, shaking his head and pouting his lips. “Oh merciful great Boobear, please don’t kill me, I’m so afraid” he says, assuming an high-pitched voice, before going back to his own, “just so you know, I’m walking away because I got better things to do. Byeee,” he yells with a ridiculous smile on his face and the gayest wave of his hand, before ambling out of the hallway.

Louis grins smugly, before entering the room and apologising for the retard.

 

*

 

“So things between you and Eleanor ended quite pacifically, might I guess.”

The dark haired guy in front of him asks with a clear and smooth voice, referring to the photos of him and El going around on the Internet of their little rendez-vous in a coffee shop in Manchester. After the announcement of their break up fans went mental, as predicted, claiming the approaching of his coming-out and the public affirmation of Larry.

It never came. And Louis smiles.

“Yeah, yeah. We broke up as mutually agreed and we are still good friends. Like, for real, not that kind of things that are said just for the sake of it.”

“Would it be indiscreet to ask you what happened?”

“No. Uhm, I guess we just run out of things worth staying together for. And --”. He trails off and smiles even wider, his eyes crinkle in the corners, and he has to bite his lips to keep himself from grinning like an idiot.

“I think I’m in love with someone else," and he hopes the _still_ left unspoken lingers harsh above the other words." So yeah. I wanted to make things clear at least once in my life, so I took my responsibilities and did what I got to.”

The other lads all stare at him with confused expressions, because Louis hasn’t mentioned any kind of new lover in his life. Only Zayn looks at him with a lopsided smile, trademark of that love that tides them up so tightly, where there is no space for secrets, just room for silences that speak louder than anything else.

“Uuuuh a new lover. Tell us more. Does she know how you feel?”

“I think this person might not exactly know how I feel, but I’ve been in love with them for quite a bit, and not that subtly, so maybe they do know. We--we kind of fell out some time ago, but. But I want to give us another chance, if they’d let me.”

He darts his eyes to look at Harry, who’s staring back at him with wide emerald eyes that glisten with something Louis’ sure he falls in love with every time he gets lost in them.

“I’m convinced that when it comes to love, there are no obstacles too hard to overcome, that no matter how many times you fall, you will always do it together. And that you will always find a way to sort things out, no matter what it takes.”

There is a brief silence that settles in the room, and Louis feels the drag of it over his skin like a kiss that wants to bruise and mark with the force of it.

“Oh well, what an answer haha mmh so. Now that the tour is finally over, what are your plans for---”

Louis isn’t listening to him anymore. He lets the words fall around him, crumble like the edge of his own voice. A light explodes and he collapses in a hidden corner of his soul, where the pain and fear of the past merge and get deleted in the absolute pleasure of _now_. Because Harry is looking at him like he’s falling in love with him all over again, and again and again, like he can’t stop.

And Louis feels the fall too. He relishes the moments before the crash, back into Harry’s arms, where everything started, and ended, somehow.

 

 

*

 

 

Louis is sat on a kitchen stool.

There is a fuming mug of tea in front of him, black like the inky sky outside the window stretching over London, and like the toast he burned just few minutes ago which rests on a porcelain blue plate.

He should really learn how to cook. Or at least how to set that damn toaster. He got a feeling it’s not that hard, really, but he’s resolute on keeping burning every sandwiches he prepares, because that’s how things have always been.

 They have a couple of months of pause from general occupations, just random interviews in little local radio stations, and dumb promotions around the country. Liam and Zayn run away to Mexico without telling their management a single word, enjoying some days just by themselves on a isolated wild beach. They left their phones at home, calling the guys from phone booths just every now and then just to let them know they are still alive, that _yes, we will eventually come back. Maybe,_ and that _yes, we haven’t been eaten by whales or, dunno, fishes and sort._

Niall was really worried about that.

Talking about Niall, he is back in Mullingar, cocooned between homemade meals and some serene and calm time spent together with his old friends and family. Louis is afraid that the day they will finally get back to work Niall will have become a fatty man with a huge ass and greasy cheeks and sauce all over his face.

Oh well, for the last part we are already there, so.

Louis, instead, is sat on a kitchen stool, sipping black tea and going through his Twitter feed on his Iphone. There is soft music playing in the background, tender notes floating in the sweet spring air of the crepuscule. Louis feels a smile tugs the corners of his mouth when he hears him humming under his breath.

Harry is sat on the windowsill, legs against his chest and a book cradled in the cleft between his knees. He’s skimming the papery pages with his fingertips, biting absentmindedly his lower lips with his ivory teeth, while his eyes are focused on the words inked up on them. With his free hand he’s fumbling with the golden ring attached to a silver necklace which rests above his chest, trailing his fingertips over the few words carved on it.

He traces those words as if feeling them under his skin will make them more real. And Louis thinks that maybe it will, and so he just watches him doing it with a soft smile.

It’s just a ring, Louis keeps telling himself, but he knows that the gold band holds a promise, strong and unbreakable like the metals forged together to make it. A promise which hides inside each chemical bond, between each element that forms the alloy. Of a tomorrow what hopefully will come soon, when everything will be over but ready to finally begin for real.

Of a tomorrow that maybe will never come, but it's okay anyway.

In the meanwhile, Louis watches the boy with clumsy arms and lanky longs legs against his chest, sat on the windowsill and resting his head against the glass of the window, and smiles.

Smiles because there will probably be again the print of Harry’s nose and the alones of his warm breath over the glass. Louis knows that when Harry will doze off on the couch he will just grin fondly at him, picking up an humid cloth and wiping them away.

Louis thinks the traces that Harry leaves in his life can’t be erased that easily. He wonders if they can be erased at all, or if they are like those scars that fade but never truly go away.

Louis thinks he doesn’t want them to.

Their contract is due to end in few months now. Louis isn’t sure if whatever will come out of it will take any benefits to their lives, or if everything will just come back to the normalcy that they quite got used to, if he has to be honest.

He still can’t take Harry’s hand when they are in public. He still has to be careful where he bites and sucks on his pale skin, to school the way he looks at him and how he acts around him. But as he thought a year ago, there is a thing their management can’t control.

It’s the way they feel, the way their hearts beat in unison no matter how far they are from each other inside a room. No matter how many girls they are both related to everyday. Because they are just names, hollow and empty. They don’t taste right on their tongues, which brush only and solely against each other, licking and curling around their names like nobody else has ever done that before.

The songs keep changing, going on inexorably with every tick of the clock hand, the staccato rhythm echoes in the newly painted kitchen. There are still little freckles of peach paint on Harry’s nose, that despite how strong he rubs them, they don’t seem to be planning to go away any time soon. Louis grabs his mug and brings it to his lips. It’s almost cold now, so he places it back on the kitchen table. When he looks at it, he doesn’t see anymore Nick’s hand pressing Harry against the flat surface and pushing inside him.

He sees dishes full of cold food and forgotten forks in them, Harry sprawled on a chair, while Louis bounces onto his cock with an unrelenting pace, cradling his head in both hands, kissing him deeply and hungrily. He sees himself sat at its edge with his legs hanging boneless, Harry’s head bobbing between his thighs, his own hand pressing his head deeper and deeper to make him swallow him all up.

He sees breakfast in the morning, with warm tea and burned toasts, and Harry yarning next to him with his sleepy eyes and mussed hair. He sees at lots of things, some of them too beautiful and private for words to cage them, other simply so normal, and yet so unique.

He stands up, drops the mug in the sink and strolls toward Harry. Harry puts the book down, and makes space for him between his legs. Louis tucks himself against Harry’s chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart against his own. The moonlight washing in through the window bounces off the glass of the frames above the dresser, pooling pale light on the wooden floors. When Louis looks at them, he thinks of at time where the edges of Harry’ body were blurred. A time where he was looking for something worth breathing for, and always finding it in Harry’s eyes.

He sees memories shattered in little fragments, which maybe don’t need to be fixed. A reminder that sometimes in life some wounds don’t heal.

“I still got scared you know.”

Harry pulls him closer and drops a kiss on his cheekbone before burying his nose in his hair. “Of what babe?” he asks, but he sounds as if he didn’t want to, and Louis guesses it’s because he already knows.

He sees the gashes in Harry’s eyes, and thinks there must be a beauty that the world doesn’t deserve to see. “That one day I won’t see you enter that door again.” He hates how small his voice sounds, so fragile as if even a whisper could shatter it. And he won’t ever tell him how his heartbeat falters whenever he opens the door, for fear of what he could find inside. How his chest constricts when Harry is not there and he fears he won’t ever be again.

“You broke me in so many ways I’m afraid to count them, but I will always let you break me if it means I got to have you.”

Harry’s fingers curl around Louis’ wrist, and he thinks they are trying to say _I’m sorry_ and the throb of the veins underneath _I know_. Louis breathes out this unbearable feeling coiling at the pit of his stomach, willing his fingers to stop trembling.  Harry presses an open kiss to the back of his neck, leaving promises and apologies in its wake in the hollows of Louis’ throat. He feels the ring digging against his back, leaving a soft pressure that reminds him they are here today like the years haven’t passed.

“I’ll never break you anymore. I promise, Lou. And I’ll wait, even if it will take a lifetime for you to forgive me.”

Louis thinks there are blotches of forgiveness staining his fingertips, and Louis likes how they paint shadows on Harry pale skin like they could mark him in still another way. Maybe one day he will learn how to love him properly, to be able to be the person that fills Harry cracks and kisses his bruises as if it wasn’t him the one who left them there.

He’s afraid that maybe they’ll lose sight of each other again. Of what they have and how much it hurts. Maybe they’ll fall out again and lose each other another time, and then another and another one like they can’t really take a hold of their relationship and make it work. But Louis smiles.

 

Because he has an entire lifetime to fix them.

**Author's Note:**

> It turns out I suck at summaries ha and I'm going through a mental breakdown because I have like, issues.
> 
> Thanks to Ducky again who physically kicked my ass to make me post it. This is always for you


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